Sorry for the nonobjective title,
But really, every election, the Islamic Action Front(IAF) and other opposition parties boycott the election and every time the only thing that happens is they lose more seats and no practical gains at all!!! What is the point of boycotting? Is it a way to get an excuse for losing? Are they afraid if they actually run then they will lose anyway??
I remember similar thing happened in Iraq several years ago when the Sunni parties boycotted the election because they said it is not legitimate while the Shia parties didn’t boycott and guess what happened? the Shia won the majority of the seats and nobody cared that the Sunni boycotted. Same thing happens EVERY SINGLE election in Jordan. The funny thing, in Iraq the next election, the Sunni actually joined the election and they got a good share of the seats.I really hope those “opposition” parties learn from such events and stop being such an emo
On another note, everyone should vote EVEN if they thing it won’t make a difference because they think it is rigged. If you never vote, we can never know if it is really rigged or not AND we will never have good people in power. I hate it when i see the ratio of complaining to action stupidly high.
Did you vote?? why yes or why not? and do you think boycotting is helpful in any practical way?
Win.
Thank you for the post. However, the Islamic Party, imo, had other reasons not to run the elections. i’m not defending them. In all actuality, I kinda hate them at the moment.
Many people who were running up for a seat supported by their families have actually failed this year, which is a pretty good sign. Still, we’re way away from starting a decent democracy. I was engaged in some activity that got me talking to people who were into the elections lately and I can tell you that most are still voting for all the wrong reasons. What struck me the most was how they believed that if we could get the Prime Minister elected by the people (or by those elected by the people) then we’d get democracy. I’m given to understand that a Prime Minister, once chosen, must get trusted by the senate. i.e a majority must vote that he/she is a trustworthy person and deemed fit for such a position which rounds up, almost, to the same thing requested.
Why people choose not to vote is something beyond my grasp. I was pro voting for the first year ever. What I saw didn’t make me much more enthusiastic. People who chose not to vote are, again, in my opinion, either too lasy and won’t admit it or somehow believe that if they don’t vote then it will make the elections somehow less legitimate! I really believe that some people think the government will be boiling deep inside because they didn’t vote which is something that lacks a proper adjective that can describe it. In Amman, the percentage of people who voted, from those who are older than 18 AND enlisted for elections, was 34%!! Did anyone fucking care? No. There are seats that when announced to have been won, the number of the voters were not announced and instead a ratio from those who voted for the different nominees competing for that seat was told to the press! They are shy to announce the actual numbers because some people won with less than a 100 votes. If I ran for elections for certain seats, I would’ve had a decent chance to win.
I really hope we get an answer from any of those who chose not to vote. An old man told me a couple of days ago “We are not trying to make the elections a 100% good thing. We’re trying, through voting for who we believe is best, to get it from 80% bad to 70% bad.”. If all the “good” people who refused to vote did vote, we would’ve had it at 65% bad.
Voting in such elections with such laws is voting for the government and against the country. When the last parliament was dissolved everybody was waiting a change in the law. Surprisingly the change came from the government ignoring all voices and with a law that is much worse than the one before.
Boycotting means that the government has to understand that it can not bypass any laws without any objection from the people. Boycotting is “أضعف الايمان” in a country where you are not even allowed to demonstrate your views, and where you will be punished if you advocated such issues.
Now the government has a new parliament that will pass all of the laws the government took in the absence of it.
Moreover, such a parliament will bring disastrous decision and will not be able to reject or discuss anything.
When people oppose something, they do it because they care for the country, and not for personal benefits.
What are those representatives, when each of them thinks his tribe that is better than all other people?! How can those people make legislations?
And by the way, those stupid you referred to are the majority in the two most populated cities in Jordan.
Starting your article with a generalization undermines the credibility of the article.
I understand that the case of the Iraqi elections there was a more powerful reason to vote. I also agree that the IAF should not have boycotted the elections.
I am pro-voting. However, i see that the perspective the parliament looks at in order to improve society is weak and lacks by far will and supplies. For instance, you shouldn’t be surprised to see pro-tribal, pro-was6a… pro-corruption in 10 years. This is because no force is being applied to destroy the corrupt basis in society. Honestly, as long as Jo schools are flooded with people who live and breath was6a and discrimination then it will not dissolve by itself.
The answer is to create REAL laws an indication of which is that if a “wa9el” person gets into jail people will not think twice about him staying there.
P.S i appreciate your blog’s powerful discussions. You people seem to be well aware of the situation around you and have a good behavior towards your awareness.
I didn’t vote for simple reasons.
I’m not going be a part of a silly play directed by the government. the Parliament was chosen from the beginning, the Army votes in civil look, the head of the Parliament was chosen 2 months ago.
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http://3alarasi.com/files/photos/47810f956e3d8fbL.gif
to make things worse we have to vote in a stupid new voting low that give people chance to win as long the government want them to.
finally as Elùne said I’m not giving them legitimacy by raising the percentage of participation, I’ve been told that a school in Jabal Amman had a 3 voter until 12:00, to many people told me to put a white paper,
to me being there is a sin by it self.
believe me Elùne it is better to keep your hands clean from this crime, the people who voted ether some stupid family voting for their son so he can serve them or some cheap people sold their souls to the devil.
sa3d its kind of harsh to call us stupid – i didnt vote-, since it is still my right to vote or not.
i did not vote simply as ODIN stated i dont want to be a part of this “Wedding” of hypocrisy and lies. ive watched on TV the Candidates giving their speeches and frankly i couldn’t have been more embarrassed. and hoping that by positively electing the right people and changing the way this country is rules? thats stupidity itself.
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Sorry for the stupid thing. i didn’t mean the non-voters, i meant the parties that still thinks that boycotting will actually affect the voting or that boycotting will actually help them in some way. look at the few candidates from the islamic party who run independent, some of them actually won. so if the islamic party joined, they will DEFINITELY win more seats. so overall they took the wrong choice.
XZeer, i still do not understand you point. you don’t want to vote since 90% or 99% of it is rigged/stupid candidates/ triblasim/ ..etc. but even with all that, not voting will most definitely not help in any way. voting still have the chance of helping or as Elune put it, reduce the bad slightly.
so XZeer and ODIN, what do you think we should do to help correct the situation?
sorry again for the “stupid part” i was upset when i wrote the article, i did admit that it was wrong thing to say in an article.
my opinion should not be generalized since i usually choose to be a “negative nancy”, but i dont even believe that you can reduce the bad slightly.
the way i see the elections: its a way of the government to convince the people that its a free country and that citizens can actually vote, when infact its less than useless.
but i do not blame the government, our society needs that kind of treatment, every time a council is elected they do nothing of what they promised, they horde the privileges to themselves, and they sometimes -as in the previous council- use their authority for illegal purposes, and yet people still fail to see this and keep wishing things will be better.
so in my opinion; its all rubbish and i wont be bothered with it, and it wont be fixed in a conventional way. there has to be a re-structuring of the society in order to see some improvements.
simply , give freedom to speak, to taste a real democracy with active parties that stand as a Opposition with real ideology.
to get free of the concept of Family and i’m forced to obey like cheeps with a dog.
education , because people look to candidates like servants to open streets and get them jobs in government etc… no someone how writes lows.
@Odin,
I don’t find freedom of speech in any way simple. I perfectly agree on the justice that a person would have to speak something he really believes would lead to greater justice.
However, freedom of speech will be accompanied by VERY large responsibility. For example, If someone expresses a controversial statement, then people should not attack nor adhere to his words. The responsibility is to FIND these controversial ideas and continuously DISCUSS them to form resolutions which affect the law.
The west believes freedom of expression includes desecration of Islam’s holy figures (i also find that in Amman schools kids make fun of other religions).
I find that religious ideology highly influences what is “just” when it comes to freedom of speech, increasing the responsibility which we would have (and should accept).