Jordanians vote in muted elections
Coronavirus and apathy appeared to have dampened turnout in Jordan’s parliamentary elections yesterday.
Polls were extended for two hours until 9pm to attract more voters, but to little avail.
The government also announced a record- high Covid-19 death toll, with 91 fatalities and 5,996 new cases across the kingdom.
Polling booths opened across the country yesterday morning amid a nationwide coronavirus surge and growing apathy in the capital towards a parliament that has failed to act on citizens’ demands or improve the economy.
At a polling station in central Amman, a dozen masked observers and campaign supporters mingled outside as a small line of voters filed in, each spaced a metre apart.
Mohammed Nabulsi, 55, was one of several who decided to vote early.
“We are doing our duty to elect people who will represent us and clear out the figures and personalities who were only serving their pockets,” Mr Nabulsi said, declining to say who he had cast he vote for.
Fadi Khaled, 35, a driver and part-time accountant, was driving to his home district outside the northern city of Irbid to vote for a woman candidate who is an active community organiser.
“We have to be cautious, disinfect, abide by social distancing today,” he said, “but we also have to have a say about our future.”
Among the handful of infractions yesterday, a citizen with Covid-19 voted in a polling centre in north Amman without declaring that he was infected.
According to Jordan’s Independent Electoral Commission, poll workers learnt that the voter, a physician, was coronavirus positive after checking the roll of voters against a database.
The commission, which is using a socially- distanced voting system designed to take five minutes or less, said it was approaching every voter as if they had Covid-19.
Following the elections, the government will impose a four-day nationwide lockdown to prevent candidate celebrations and social gatherings, and to provide a break for the kingdom’s hospitals, which are reportedly over 50 per cent capacity.