Jordan: elections to have honesty and transparency as recommended by the king

Jordan announced on Thursday that the date of the postponed parliamentary elections after solving the parliament in 2001 will be set in July after the government has completed its preparations to make the elections according to transparency values.

The Jordanian prime minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb said that "fixing the date of the elections will be in July and the Jordanian King Abdullah is the person constitutionally able to fix the final date for the elections."

In a statement to the Jordanian daily al-Rai issued on Thursday, Abu al-Ragheb said that the "elections will be held during this year and the government, for its part, completed special arrangements to run the elections with utmost standards of honesty and transparency as recommended by his RH the King and the directives of the government." The Jordanian king solved the parliament in June, 2001 before the parliamentary elections which were due on November 2001.

Meantime, Jordan received a sum of $ 5.57 million representing the second part of an American economic donation at a value of $ 150 million for 2002, according to the US embassy in Amman.

In a statement, the embassy said that $ 45 million of this sum will be allocated for developing and implementing urgent water projects carried out by the American agency for international development ( US Aid ), and $ 5.12 million to support the health sector. On March 6 Jordan got the first part of this aid estimated at USD 1.37 million allotted to support economic aid. It is scheduled that Jordan will also get a military aid estimated at $ 75 million for the year 2002.