In the run-up to municipal and governorate elections on Aug. 15 in Jordan, expectations for nationwide voter turnout were low. In addition to electing members of more than 100 municipalities across the kingdom, voters were asked to select the members of 12 newly formed governorate councils. The aim of the councils is to decentralize government decisions and empower local representatives to plan and approve projects and services at the governorate level. At the end of the day, only 31% of the 4.1 million eligible voters had cast ballots, with the major urban centers of Amman, Zarqa and Irbid experiencing exceptionally low turnout.
The biggest surprise, however, was the unexpected gains made by Islamists. Running under a broad coalition — the National Alliance for Reform — the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, announced that its candidates had won 76 seats across the kingdom, including the presidency of three municipalities. A prominent IAF figure, Ali Abu al-Sukar, scored a major victory by winning the presidency of the municipal council of Zarqa, Jordan’s second largest city, a largely conservative urban center and a traditional Islamist base.
The Islamist-led coalition also claimed 25 seats in the governorate councils, plus five seats on the coveted Greater Amman Municipality Council. It also announced that 11 women on its lists had won seats. Women voters, said to make up 53% of the voter base, failed to turn out in big numbers, according to the Independent Election Commission (IEC). In Amman, the figure was less than 5%.
The IAF had boycotted previous municipal elections in protest of what it considered to be unfair elections laws. Its breakthrough in the Aug. 15 elections followed years of internal divisions, defections and splits that were thought to have weakened the movement’s base. The same coalition had won 15 out of 130 seats in the September 2016 legislative elections. Ironically, the newly formed Muslim Brotherhood Society (MBS) and other splinter groups were absent from the recent elections, as were most of the kingdom’s political parties.
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