‘Date for municipal, decentralisation elections expected in a month’

AMMAN — The date for conducting the municipal and governorate council elections will be set within a month, but preparations to hold them are already under way, a senior official said on Thursday.

Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs and Minister of State Musa Maaytah, said no date has been yet set for the elections, “but it will be announced in a month's time”.

Maaytah told The Jordan Times that the polls will be held in the second half of the year.

He added that although the elections will be conducted this year, budget allocations for the governorate councils will be in the 2018 budget.

Local government elections, which will be held for the first time in Jordan's history, are aimed at increasing Jordanians' political engagement and enabling citizens to decide on issues and priorities in their governorates, Maaytah said in previous remarks.

The Council of Ministers in November 2016 approved a by-law that regulates the work of the governorate councils and identifies the procedures of their meetings and internal elections.

The regulations stipulate that a governorate council takes its decision through a majority public vote and sets rules for the management of the body’s internal affairs and the formation of its committees, their tasks and election mechanism.  

Under the by-law, the governor summons the council to hold its first meeting within no more than 30 days from the day the results of the governorate council elections are published in the Official Gazette. 

The meeting should be headed by the eldest member, while the president of the council is elected through secret ballot by the members. The same procedure applies to the vice president and the president’s assistant.

The by-law is part of a series of regulations issued under the Decentralisation Law. 

In the Letter of Designation to the first government of Prime Minister Hani Mulki in May 2016, His Majesty King Abdullah mandated the Cabinet to issue all the necessary by-laws and regulations to implement the Decentralisation Law, including making the necessary arrangements to hold the elections of governorate councils this year.