Jordanian women launch parliamentary elections

Jordanian women will launch a less difficult fight in the Parliamentary elections due on June 17 after a recent amendment for the Jordanian election act that guaranteed women a quota of no less than 6 seats at the 110- member Jordanian parliament.

The existence of the quota has encouraged Jordanian women who constitute 49% of the voters to be brave to join the parliamentary elections as the number of women candidates for this session reached 60 distributed on 30 election circles out of 45 circles in the kingdom.

However, the last parliamentary elections took place in 1997 in Jordan witnessed the nomination of 36 women but none of them had succeeded. Besides Jordanian women have not won parliamentary seats since the introduction of the democratic life to Jordan in 1989, just for one time in 1993 when Toujan al-Faisal won a seat for the third circle allotted to Sharkas and Cheachean communities.