Just How Seriously Our Parliament Takes Corruption

AMMAN — Lack of quorum at the lower House on Sunday prevented deputies from discussing the findings of a special committee entrusted with investigating the alleged involvement of a former minister in a corruption case.

At 4:30pm — the scheduled time for the session to begin — only 55 deputies were present under the Dome. A minimum of 73 MPs out of the House’s 110 members must be present to declare the beginning of the session.

Lower House Speaker Abdul Hadi Majali extended the waiting period for half- an-hour in the hope that more deputies would arrive, thumb but the number remained well below the quorum, healing prompting him to cancel the session. [Jordan Times]

16 Comments

  • I told you before, we are a special country with special people, and I bet 75% of them will back in the parliment after the elections. Is it because they are wrong, no, because we are stupid.There should a minimum masters degree to run for the parliment.
    One Rule that I have in my life and always judge people with:
    If you don’t respect time, then you are nothing..
    O hala 3ammi, o a7la barlaman..

  • muhannad, how can you claim that 75% of Jordanians will re-elect same bums to parliament when you know that the lower house represents less than 50% of Jordanians. not to mention the Upper House and the Cabinet are appointed. let us not open the discussion again about the jordanian government is designed to marginalize the majority of Jordanians while giving power to the tribs. this is the genius of the regime, pitting one group against another in the name of protecting this or that group while playing judge.

  • Yanis
    I said 75% of the members will be back..Read my comment please, Why do people not read carefully. Thanks for your reply, and your argument has some truth to it..but lets not discuss:)

  • mohanned: i tend to agree with you technically but in most cases the tribes will circulate the seat to some one else in order to share power.

    yanis: i disagree about the pitting one group against the other, that seems to be the generic and archiac argument. however i agree there is massive disproportionate voting that needs to be fixed asap.

    that being said, it should also be noted that if it was fixed islamists would enjoy a lot more power.

    it’s one or the other and most times i cant tell who’s worse

  • This skipping of sessions are increasing in Jordan lately. Actually -to be fair- I saw something in Louis Doubs CNN about this problem in the US as well. Can’t they legislate something to prevent MPs skipping X number of sessions. I know it sounds like a high school policy but you never know.

    At least the current MPs (from time to time) will TRY to do something , either to look good before the election or just to piss the government. I doubt if we will have this with the IAF.

  • habchawi: it’s a double edged sword. to place a rule on attendance is an impediment to political freedoms. a parliament walk out for example.

    but if it were me i would have a law that deducts from the MPs salaries every time they miss a session

  • Naseem: Sorry to go off topic, man, but please post up some new poetry on paperpoet, pretty please!!! That’s some amazing stuff, mashaAllah 🙂

    Thanks!

  • This Parliment is only rubber stamps,and will not be able to acheive anything meaningful the poor people,the corruoption is beyond uou and me.

    There is a intresting arical I like to share with you,and I think every Jordanian must read this “Even during martial law [during Jordan’s 1970 civil war], public gathering was a right for the people,” says Hussein Mjali, who in March resigned as head of the Jordanian Bar Association to protest the draft law. “Now it is a gift from the ruler.”

  • The only way for people to better their life is mobilise and confront the old paradigm.
    you can’t imagine the scope of corruption in Jordan.we the people, and specially the young must start to mobilise to challenge the old gaurd who have hindered the progress toward real democracy.

  • I don’t agree with the whole Masters should be the minimum requirements for a person to be elected as a member of parliament. It’s not the education degrees that make you of a good parliament member…

    I remember reading somewhere in al ghad embare7 that they agreed inno innocent? sa7 walla la2?

    omar

  • Omar,
    We don’t know what kind of requirments should be put..Most of them are not educated and don’t even know how to read, how do you expect them to endorse laws that will build jordan.. One of the IAF parliment members suggested eliminating english from jordan, even in universities!! Can you imagine that?? What do you expect from this kind of people, I am not generlaizng, but we are in deep trouble if we continue like this.
    they didn’t agree he was innocent, they were going to say that you can’t charge him with anything and stop the investigation..

  • I think the requirements should include full knowledge of a language. But some are too tribe-material to go abroad and be able to represent Jordan, cause that’s obviously not the majority of us.

    It’s absolutely absurd that one suggested eliminating English from curriculum, he’s probably grudging the fact that his son didn’t pass Tawjihi English and demanded so. LOL

    Well you can’t just have a number of 110 Members that are completely up to the scale and standards needed. So, that leads me back to your nice little quote “Is it because they are wrong, no, because we are stupid”

  • ulurdunialhurr, totally agree with you! The major obstacle standing between a present Jordan and a better Jordan is the old guard, and the only way to amputate that is by providing Jordanians with a better alternative: a new better generation.

  • I don’t think education should be standard for anybody to run for public office.
    Like Naom Chomsky once wrote,”Eduction is a form of imposed ignorance”
    you either have been ignorantly educated or educated ignorantly.

  • In speaking of education,I have seen so many people with PhD, and I tell you, they are the most ignorantly educated you can ever imagine.
    I also hate people when they introduce themselves as Dr x or z,it feels that he or she is trying to impress with their degree that they gained ignorantly
    And what’s funny,when people say that they received their degree from this institution or that school.
    And I think we must start at looking at the “education” in Jordan and the state of shamble that’s in ,In my opinion,education in our country has become commodity,ie tomatoes or patata you buy in the open market.
    And where knowledge and wisdom have become that thing of the past.

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