Gov’t promises to provide political parties with funding by-law draft before finalisation

AMMAN — Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Musa Maaytah on Wednesday said that a finalised draft of the political party funding by-law will be sent to political parties before being finalisation within the constitutional frameworks.

Maaytah and the coalition of reformist parties met at the ministry and have agreed on the need to continue the discussion on relevant legislations, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

“The message that the government wants to convey to citizens is that political parties are key to parliamentary participation,” Maaytah stated.

“When a citizen feels that a certain party fulfils their ambitions then they would join it, because the foundation of political activism is party activism,” he noted.

Maaytah called on citizens to use social media and online sources to familiarise themselves with various political parties, reported Petra.

“The purpose of funding political parties is to enhance and strengthen them, whereby systematic political party activism becomes the base of involvement in politics and elections,” stated Salah Qudah, coordinator of the coalition for reformist parties and secretary general of the Jordanian Future Party.

Qudah pointed to the negative implications of the increasing number of parties, stressing the importance of working on the formation of national coalitions, as instructed by His Majesty King Abdullah.

Qudah underlined that the parties in question are in agreement with the government about the need to monitor the funding process too.

This is the last meeting allocated for the discussion of amendments to the by-law in question, according to Petra.