Women's participation in elections in Jordan

As elections are approaching I have get more and more e-mails and messages from women who have sent their nomination for MP's and had been present on my seminars in Jordan, and who say that they are ready for the this race.

Fact that women have higher interest for Parliament now can be attributed to increase of their awareness of the rights and duties of women in modern societies.

I see this as the desire of women, as a neglected and I dare to say - often better educated and better part of this society, to contribute to the promotion and further development of fragile democracy of Middle East.

I am sure that in this process, lot of influence has had the Queen Rania herself as a symbol of the modern in Jordan.

At last elections in 2007 in this race have been involved 199 women for 6 'women' places from total 112 in Jordanian parliament.

Until this morning, according to my information, the 47 women announced their candidacy for the 12 'female' seats in Parliament which will count 120 members.

I hope that till 6th October, when the nomination procedure is completed, this number will be far exceed than the number of women candidates in 2007, and that it will exceed 300 as I have optimistically announced in July.

The biggest problem especially for women candidate will be a bad temporary election law that is in force in Jordan.

The problem is not in quota system. Those who know my political beliefs know that I am their great opponent.

I would not go further in explanation, but I think that the quota system in Jordan, because of the tradition and culture are mandatory.

The problem is, as I can see in the law, a proportional system that favors women in smaller constituencies. What will probably happen, that a woman with 200 votes become an MP, and the woman that have won more than 2,000 votes - not be.

Improvement of all election laws is a process that cannot be completed for the day, not even for a few months. Jordan is just at the beginning of this process.

That is why at women winners in  future elections, waits a lot of work, and the greatest is to convince society, especially women, that politics is not reserved only for men

If they succeed to accomplish it in this mandate of new Parliament, Jordanian democracy will make a huge step forward.