Government to submit decentralisation, municipal bills to Parliament ‘within days’

AMMAN – Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Tuesday said the government will refer the decentralisation and municipalities draft laws to Parliament “within the coming few days”. 

The two bills, along with the political parties and elections laws, are the pieces of legislation on which the country’s reform drive is founded. 

The premier said that under the decentralisation bill, each governorates would have an executive council which will play the role of a local Cabinet, and an elected council, or legislature.

On the local elections day, there would be three ballots for each voter to fill out, one for their representatives at the municipal council, another for the mayor and the third for representatives at the local council.

Ensour said the government may appoint some members to the local council to ensure that these bodies are supported by qualified and efficient people. 

Once lawmakers endorse the two draft laws and the draft political parties law, which has already been referred to Parliament, the government would send the new elections draft law to the Lower House, said Ensour.

“Hopefully lawmakers would complete the three laws as soon as they could in order to have time to discuss the draft elections law,” he said, describing the new elections bill, which is being drafted behind closed doors, as a modern piece of legislation that would address existing and previous legislation. 

Early this week, Ensour said the government would not present the Lower House with an elections law that adopts the one-person, one-vote formula. 

Under the existing controversial law, on the basis of which the 2013 parliamentary elections were held, each voter is given two votes: one for a candidate at the district level and another for a closed proportional list that competes for 27 seats at the national level.