International Coverage of Jordanian Elections
In covering the fifteenth parliamentary election in Jordan, most international media articles made sure to define Jordan as the “US-ally” country. A lot of media outlets emphasized the government deliberate interference in the election polls by headlining their articles with references to the government “tightening grip on elections” or “playing down fraud”. Other international media outlets focused their headlines on the Islamist Action Party “loss” , “defeat”, “setback”, or “electoral disaster” or the victory of the “allies” of the King. This kind of headlining draws the image of the elections in Jordan as a battle between two parties: the IAF and the government allies. It even seems that stands of that the international media took towards the election was predetermined before the Election Day as the L.A Times predicted that the "Jordanian vote will be unfair” and the VOA said “a few surprises expected”. What was ironic is that Al-Ahram weekly described Jordan’s democracy as “disproportionate” because of the unbalanced division of the electoral constituencies between the rural and the urban areas.
There was little concern and research on the low percentage of voters (53% in the whole kingdom, and 20% in Amman and Zarqa) and the fact that the IAF pulled 90 per cent of its candidates before the Election Day. This is not to make a judgment on the fairness of the elections, but to say that the international media outlet failed to describe the complexities and the dynamics of the Jordanian public opinion. Little consideration was given for the stands of Jordanian voters towards the usefulness of the parliament or the adequacy of the candidates the (IAF or others). Conclusions about the fear of the government from Hamas by associating them with the IAF, and the pro-US stand of Jordan dominated the analysis of the election results and undermined the Jordanian public political awareness. It is obvious that the international media wanted to represent the results of the election as a product of governmental or external interferences rather than voters’ choices.
