IAF, allies win 15 seats at 18th Parliament — leader

AMMAN —  The National Coalition for Reform led by the Islamic Action Front (IAF) has won 15 seats in the 130-member Lower House, according to the preliminary results of the September 20 elections.

Ali Abu Sukkar, the coalition’s spokesperson, said of these 15 seats, 10 were won by members of the IAF, the political wing of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. 

Of the seats the coalition won, nine are in Amman, three in Zarqa and one each is in Irbid, Balqa and Jerash. These include three seats won by women: two under the quota system (Hayat Mseimi (Zarqa 1st)  and Dima Tahboub (Amman 3rd),  while Huda Etoum won an off-quota seat in Jerash. 

Three of the coalition’s seats were reserved by Jordanians of Circassian or Chechen origins through the quota system. Winners in that quota are Mansour Murad (Amman 3rd), Tamer Bino (Amman 5th) and Nabil Shishani (Zarqa 1st). Mansour Murad is a leftist and former MP who joined ranks with the Islamists during the election race. One of the Christian candidates who were supported by the IAF and its other allies also won.

Other winners of the alliance are Musa Hantash (Amman 1st), Abdullah Akaileh and Musa Wahsh (Amman 2nd), Saleh Armouti (Amman 3rd), Ahmad Riqib (Amman 4th), Mustafa Assaf (Amman 5th), Saud Abu Mahfouz (Zarqa 1st), Yousef Jarrah (Irbid 3rd) and Ibrahim Abusayyid (Balqa). 

The coalition took part in the elections through 20 “national” lists with 119 candidates.

According to infographs distributed by the coalition, 70 per cent of these lists won at least one seat, 15 per cent of which went for women and Jordanians of Circassian or Chechen origins. In addition, 100 per cent of the quota allocated for Jordanians of Circassian or Chechen origins was won by members of the coalition. 

The coalition also noted that, the 15 seats they won comprise the largest bloc under the Dome.

The IAF participated in this year’s elections after boycotting the elections in 2010 and 2013. In previous remarks, IAF Secretary General Mohammad Zyoud said the party boycotted the previous elections, because of the one-person, one-vote electoral system, the “interference of authorities” in the electoral process and “forgery of the elections’ results” in 2007.

The Elections Law discarded the one-person, one-vote electoral system and replaced it with a voting system in which candidates run for parliamentary elections on large tickets at the constituency level.