- Election CoverageIslamic Movements
- November 28, 2007
- 3 minutes read
Falahat: Jordan ’s Parliamentary Elections Rigged under US Pressures
Salem Falahat, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood group in Jordan , said in a phone call with Ikhwanweb that the rigging committed in latest Jordanian parliamentary elections was carried out in response to US pressures on the Jordanian government. This was actually a part of a strategic plan that the US administration adopts to curb the Islamic movement and all other opposition movements all over the Arab and Muslim World, to sideline these movements and keep them away from all Arab issues. The US administration, Falahat added, gives a deaf ear to the massacres committed against democracy in our Arab countries although it previously claimed spearheading democratization in Arab countries. Then, it stopped such a democratization to support Arab dictatorial regimes giving no reaction towards all crimes committed against Arab peoples.
Falahat added that what happened can never be considered a failure for the Islamic movement. In Arab countries, a popularity of any political movement shouldn”t be assessed through undemocratically and untransparently held elections. These elections witnessed novel methods of election fraud, including some machines that were printing ballot papers, the circulation of ballot papers outside polling centres, moving people from one constituency to another to multiply vote for a specific candidate. All these illegal methods don”t lead to any successful elections for any political opposition power.
Asked about the expected measures to be taken by the movement to confront the rigging committed in these elections, Falahat pointed out the movement has listed all cases of election fraud to submit a complaint challenging the legality of the members of parliament who won seats in these elections. Though acknowledging that the movement expects no positive reaction from the government towards such complaints as parliament in Jordan has never dropped the membership of any MP whatever these complaints, but he added that the movement seeks to expose all those violations and that it will reconsider its stance towards participating in any future elections under government supervision because the government will undoubtedly rig any future elections like what happened during the past parliamentary and municipal elections.
Falahat dismissed rumours that any leader of the Islamic movement in Jordan resigned from the movement. He confirmed this hasn”t happened. Even if any of our leaders has resigned, this isn”t the fault of the Islamic movement, he added.
He said also that by-elections may be held inside the Islamic movement but no decision has been taken yet. He added that there voices inside the movement calling on the Islamic movement”s winning MPs to resign from the House to express their protest against this rigging but there other voices that want to keep these MPs in parliament to continue the political movement in the Jordanian parliament. Falahat added that both options are still on the table.