Survey examines citizens’ motives to join political parties

AMMAN — About 47.7 per cent of Jordanians believe that “interests” are is the top priority to join political parties, according to a public opinion poll.

Conducted by the Performance Index Centre (KAFA’A), the poll surveyed a sample of 500 Jordanians from all governorates, out of which 174 responded, yielding a response rate of 34.8 per cent.

Amman inhabitants accounted for 40.5 per cent of those surveyed, while those aged between 18 and 35 constituted 36.2 per cent of the respondents, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Jordan’s partisan experience over the past three decades, parties’ programmes and their credibility were assessed as poor at 78.2, 60.9 and 65.5 per cent, respectively.

About 51.7 per cent of respondents said that political parties’ programmes are applicable and 40.2 per cent believed they could be partially implemented.

According to the survey, 17.7 per cent of respondents prefer to join a political party on the basis of its programme, 14.4 per cent favour a party membership owing to “friendship”,  and for 13.8 per cent of the surveyed, tribal and family affiliations are the factors that motivate them to join a political party.

For 20 per cent of the young respondents, a political party’s vision and programme are seen as the factors to join a political party.

Sixty-four per cent of the respondents believe that the spread of parties is still weak, and 62.1 per cent believe that partisan ideas, such as left and right concepts, are weak among Jordanians.

The study added that 79.3 per cent believe that there is a 5-20 per cent probability that emerging parties would continue, while 20.7 per cent believe the probability of continuation exceeds 20 per cent.

KAFA’A is a non-governmental and independent performance monitoring firm, according to its website.