Polls across Jordan closed 12 hours after opening but not without violence. The parliamentary elections saw one person dead, two injured and twenty under arrest.
Results are expected to be released once the counting is finished.
The fatality and two injuries occurred during a shootout between supporters of rival candidates; and 20 people were arrested after they tried to prevent others from voting.
According to media reports, security and police forces intervened to deal with other election quarrels, including stone-throwing incidents and attempts to thwart the polling process, which occurred mostly in rural and Bedouin areas with strong kinship to the regime.
State-run media and the National Centre for Human Rights reported, however, that the polling process was completed smoothly except for few minor violations which included attempts at multiple voting and the use of false IDs.
A turnout of only 53% of registered voters was reported and in some areas the turnout was as low as 34 %.
Analysts emphasized that the low turnout could be attributed to the boycott by the Muslim Brotherhood’s offshoot, The Islamic Action Front, which decided to boycott the polls on the grounds that the government may repeat the rigging which occurred in the 2007 elections.
Back to Homepage 
Facebook 
Digg 
Yahoo 
Del.icio.us 
reddit 
StumbleUpon 
Mixx 
Google 
