AMMAN —
NAMA Strategic Intelligence Solutions (NAMA) and Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung on Sunday held a conference titled “The
state of political participation and representation in Jordan 2022” to reveal
the results of a survey they carried out to gauge the extent of political
participation and representation in Jordan.
اضافة اعلان
The study was conducted on a representative national
sample, consisting of 1,256 people and 822 university students, in October
2022.
About half of the national sample and two-thirds of
the university students said that they are able to publicly express freely
their political opinions without fear of retribution, and that this is a
significant change from the situation prevalent during the past two decades.
Despite this change, there has been no increase in
Jordanians’ interest in politics.
As the study shows, the problems that most concern
Jordanians are economic, specifically unemployment: 61.3 percent of the
national sample and 56.6 percent of the university students said they were “not
interested in politics at all”; only about 5 percent said they were “very
interested in politics”.
The majority of respondents, it was found, are more
interested in participating in social activities than in political activities.
For example, 97 percent of the university students polled said they did not
participate in any political activities during the past twelve months, 98.9
percent of those polled said that they did not belong to any political party,
64.7 percent of the national sample could not mention any political party, and
70.4 percent of the university students sampled could neither.
The problems that most concern Jordanians are economic, specifically unemployment. ...
When asked which of the existing political parties
comes close to representing their political, economic and social interests,
59.4 percent of the national sample and 67.3 percent of the university students
said that no political party represents their interests.
The study results reflect the weak ties between
Jordanians and the parties that are supposed to represent their issues and
needs, and lack of political savvy, as 25.2 percent of the national sample and
24.2 percent of the university students polled were unsure of the ways in which
parties contribute to political and economic reform.
Regarding the wish to vote for a political party or
in the upcoming parliamentary and municipal elections, 65.4 percent of the
national sample and 63 percent of university students said they would
definitely not vote; only 23.1 percent of the national sample and 23.2 percent
of the university students said they would vote.
The respondents — 39.6 percent of the national
sample and 31.9 percent of the student sample — believe that political parties
are unable to form a government in Jordan.
At the same time, 30.7 percent of the sample said
that the best system for resolving issues facing Jordan is one governed by
Islamic law, with no need for political parties, while 25.8 percent would
prefer a parliamentary system in which nationalist, leftist, centrist, and
Islamic parties compete in parliamentary elections.
Of the national sample, 37.4 percent said that they
would vote for political parties calling for the greater inclusion of women in
the political process; among students, the figure stood at 55.5 percent.
Jordanians’ interest in politics gives food for
thought. Question is what should be done to have them more effectively involved
in political work, to ensure the implementation of the political, economic and
administrative reforms envisioned by King Abdullah.
Chairman of NAMA Fares Braizat told
Jordan News that
25.2 percent of the national sample and 24.2 percent of the university students
sample were “unsure of the ways in which political parties contribute to
political and economic reform because the parties do not announce their
programs”.
“This leads us to the conclusion that Jordanians do
not trust their performance to contribute to the reform,” Braizat said, adding
that “we must rethink how to make the role of the parties more effective and
move forward with political reform”.
Other results of the study show that 50.3 percent of
the surveyed sample believe that the clan represents their interests to a large
extent, and is trusted more than the parties, parliament, trade unions, civil
society organizations, and others.
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Jordan News
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