By Laith al-Junaidi
AMMAN
A Muslim Brotherhood-linked coalition appears to have won 76 seats in Tuesday's local and provincial elections in Jordan, according to a coalition member.
“The National Alliance for Reform won 25 of the 48 provincial council seats it contested,” Murad al-Adayla, head of the Islamic Action Front (IAF)’s elections committee, told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.
The National Alliance for Reform is a broad coalition of parties led by the IAF, the political arm of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood group.
“National Alliance candidates won five out of the Amman Municipality’s 12 seats,” al-Adayla said.
According to al-Adayla, the alliance won majorities in the local councils of three of Jordan’s largest municipalities, including the industrial city of Zarqa.
“On the local council level, the National Alliance won 41 seats out of 88 candidates fielded,” he said, adding that the coalition had also helped three candidates that weren’t on its list to win seats.
Official poll results, however, have yet to be announced.
Over 1.3 million people -- or 31 percent of the country’s eligible voters -- cast ballots in this week’s local and provincial elections, according to Jordan’s official electoral commission.
A total of 6,622 candidates competed for 2,109 local council seats and 350 seats on the nation’s provincial councils.
Notably, Tuesday's vote was conducted under a new “decentralization law” adopted in 2015.
According to the law, each of Jordan’s 12 provinces has an executive council, members of which are appointed by the government, in addition to a provincial council, three quarters of whose members are elected while the rest are appointed.
Last year, Brotherhood-affiliated candidates won 15 out of 130 seats in Jordan's parliament.
