JORDAN: Mainstream Islamist party withdraws from municipality elections and accuses the authorities of vote rigging

Jordan's mainstream Islamist opposition withdrew candidates standing in local elections on Tuesday (July 31) and accused the authorities of widespread vote-rigging ahead of parliamentary polls later this year. The Islamist Action Front (IAF), which is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and the main opposition party, had earlier accused authorities of trying to influence the ballot by ferrying tens of thousands of police and security forces personnel to vote. "The decision we took out of the necessity to withdraw or not completing our participation in the municipality electoral process today came as a result of, I do not want to say the electoral massacre but the electoral crime against the country, especially after it exceeded all that was expected," Zaki Bani Rusheid, head of the Islamic Action Front, after the party decided to pull out its candidates. "What happened today is destructive to the pride of the country and an aggression on the people's will. It is also a flagrant forgery of this will. I think the government can be credited with only one point and that is transparency but transparency in forgery. The government committed forgery with excellence," he added. Rusheid demanded the dismissal of the government and holding it accountable for what he described as widespread electoral abuses that far exceeded expectations by bringing in thousands of army personnel by buses to poll stations in areas they contested to bring down Islamist candidates. "The most important violation is the participation of the army in the electoral process. Their participation came under orders and they were brought to polling centres by busses, hundreds of busses, and they had orders to blindly vote for a specific candidate. They had the right papers and they voted several times, more than ten times in the same ballot box, for a specific person, and sometimes in several ballot boxes and different areas," said Rusheid "It is really unfortunate, it is as if we are not in an electoral process and as if we are in a fight. You have the candidates of the Islamic Action Front on one hand and the security forces and those who support them on another. We announced more than once that the security forces are our sons, we are part of this country and the security forces are also a part of the country and we all protect each other. But it is very unfortunate that when I went to the ballot boxes I found that some are voting more than once and they were caught red handed but they were not interrogated and were left alone," Mousa al-Wahsh, member of parliament representing the IAF added. The government, which says it went ahead with the first local elections since 1999 to bring greater democratisation, dismissed suggestions of vote-rigging and said military personnel were among 1.9 million Jordanians eligible to vote in the poll. The Islamists were fielding candidates in traditional urban strongholds. Over 2,706 candidates are standing for 929 municipal seats, including the cities of Irbid and Zarqa. Multi-party parliamentary elections are due to be held later this year after the four-year term of the current assembly -- in which the Islamists held 17 of 110 seats -- ended last month. The Islamists said their complaints about Tuesday's poll may prompt them to reconsider taking part in the parliamentary vote. The Islamist movement seeks political change through peaceful means, including an elected government. The authorities fear they will capitalise on popular disenchantment with successive governments and a belief they failed to deliver on promises of reform to make electoral gains.

ITN Source | August 1, 2007

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