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Jordanian Woman Elected To Lower House
by Tareq Ayyoub
AMMAN, March 20 (IslamOnline) - It took four rounds of voting, but in the end, Lower House deputies elected Nuha Ma'aytah on Tuesday to fill the seat vacated by the late Deputy Lutfi Barghouti.
By the fourth round Ma'aytah clinched 46 votes to claim victory against her strongest rival Samar Haj Hassan, who garnered 23 votes, to become the first woman to sit on Jordan's 13th Parliament.
Ma'aytah, 52, heads the Jordan Women Federation. House Speaker Abdul Hadi Majali announced the result, saying that out of the 72 MPs who voted in the fourth round, two deputies cast blank ballots and one abstained.
Ma'aytah, the daughter of Mahmoud Ma'aytah, a senior member of the pro-Syria Baath Progressive Socialist Party, took the oath following her victory.
In the first round, Ma'aytah, Haj Hassan and Mohammad Zayoud, qualified for second round balloting while four of the 21 candidates failed to garner a single vote.
Zayoud won only 15 votes in the second round, and Haj Hassan cleared 27 to Ma'aytah's 26 votes.
A third round, pitting Haj Hassan against Ma'aytah still failed to yield a winner with a simple majority of 41 votes in the 80-seat House.
Ma'aytah finally took the lead, winning three swing votes from previous Haj Hassan supporters.
She is not only the second woman since 1989 to hold a House seat, but she, like her female predecessor Toujan Faisal, represents the Third District of Amman.
Observers said that Ma'aytah won the elections despite support her rival received from senior and former government officials.
"The government has received a decisive strike and was defeated despite the support they showed for Mrs. Samar," one observer, who asked not to be named, told IslamOnline.
"The government was excreting pressures on the lawmakers to elect a particular woman candidate and it certainly felt surprise to see their candidate lose," Deputy Mahmoud Kharabsheh said.
"This indicates that a struggle is within the powers centers, the Speakers of the Upper and Lower House and the government," Kharabsheh told IslamOnline.
Last month, the government informed the House that it would not be expedient to hold public elections to fill the vacated seat and requested that the Chamber conduct internal elections, sparking a debate as to the constitutionality of the government decision.
The Lower House is expected to hold its final session Wednesday. An extraordinary session is expected to be held late next month to debate a set of economic draft laws the House did not discuss during its ordinary four-month session.
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