Oula Farawati looks at the bloodstained election day in Amman There was a lot of blood. Jordan's elections day was gory. What was supposed to be the country's "celebration of democracy" was stained by violence, chaos, tear gas and a lot of anger: A Jordanian man died in crossfire, and two children were badly injured. Some candidates were hospitalised, others barely escaped being killed, supporters of a number of candidates blocked people from casting their votes in some constituencies and tribal fanatics turned the day into a day of warfare. Anti-riot police fired tear gas to disperse battlers, and some 30 rioters were arrested. On the other end of the spectrum were those who opted to totally ignore the elections: almost half of registered voters opted not to vote, and only 53 per cent of them headed to polling stations. Those who queued at polling stations to cast their votes and those who abstained were a million political years apart. And between them were those who called for boycotting Jordan's elections and joined the efforts of the Islamic Action Front, small opposition parties and a number of prominent independent liberal figures who shunned the vote in protest at what they say has been the continuous weakening of parliament by successive governments and an elections law that "did not convey the willingness to change". The boycott left the race to parliament headquarters in Abdali open only to independent candidates gaining support from strong tribal links, the vast majority of the 763 candidates who ran for 120 parliamentary seats being tribal candidates. The government has tried to keep an upbeat mood about the elections. Its discourse was mostly nationalistic; speaking to crowds about national duty was the government's cliché message, and obviously, it didn't move people enough to propel them to vote. But the government's job has not been easy, especially since the outgoing parliament was so inefficient it was dissolved two years before the end of its four-year tenure. The past parliament was the worst publicity ever for Jordan's democracy. Bringing people's confidence back into "the Jordanian democratic process", to celebrate the kingdom of openness was not going to be achieved by pure promises, and promises were all the government provided, and people didn't buy in. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that 70 former MPs from the outgoing parliament ran for the elections. They had already failed the test and merely added to the cynicism. When the country's diverse population is poorly represented in government, the economy is on a downward trend and inflation is hitting people's pockets where it really hurts, promises of democracy were futile. The official results of the vote count are to be announced Thursday at noon, but preliminary results, as widely expected, show the supremacy of the "tribal representatives". Those candidates were actually the ones that drove people to go elect kin and next of kin, and in tribally-dominated constituencies in the north and the south, voter turn out was the highest. Voter participation was almost halved in urban areas, such as Amman and Zarqa, where the Islamists traditionally win seats. Apparently, the Islamists' boycott had a meagre effect on turnout. In 2007 elections, voter turnout was 57 per cent, it only dropped four per cent in this election. The government, which was heavily scorned by Islamists, discretely celebrated: "We had hoped all Jordanians and parties would participate but compared to previous years the turnout figures show there was no impact of the boycott," Prime Minister Samir Al-Rifai said. Between tribal representatives and influential businessmen, the composition of the new house was just "a recycling of the previous parliament which was dissolved due to public demand," argues political writer Yasser Abu Hilaleh. "So the house of deputies will not lead political reform, and we will see a performance similar to the previous parliament, both in the relationship with the voter and the government," he added. With the bleak reality of the new house of MPs, hope of change is dim. The House will likely approve government legislation unchanged and will allow it to forge ahead with unpopular tight economic policies aiming to save an ailing economy that suffers from a $2 million deficit. Deputies will be engaged in servicing their voter base by providing them with government-sponsored jobs and services such as opening roads or installing new water or electricity metres. They will concentrate on these details to please those who voted for them, according to Hilaleh. But political writer Nidal Mansoor argues that the "picture is yet to become clearer. The start of the ordinary session of the lower house will coincide with the formation of a new senate, and according to the indicators, Prime Minister Samir Al-Rifai is likely re-form a new government; then we are urgently required to develop a roadmap to take us out of political limbo that we're going through," he wrote. "There are urgent questions we must address to answer them clearly and accept the cost of dealing with them, such as our willingness to build a democracy, building a civil state and supporting real democracy plus dealing with corruption. To answer these questions we have to have the political will and courage in the face of personal agendas, and to abandon the policy of stalling and wasting time," he added. Analysts argue that the desired political change that candidates promised and analysts are calling for is not coming, especially if it was to be led by parliament, marred the low turn out, bloodshed and chaos today.
