Gerrymandering:Jordan’s election Bad for the king
**Gerrymandering: Dividing constituencies (of a voting area) so as to
give one party an unfair advantage Manipulating or
adapting to one’s advantage Jordan’s election Bad for the king A new parliament is
unlikely to solve the problems of king or country JORDANIANS go to the
polls on January 23rd, the day after the Israeli election, but for people of
Palestinian origin, who make up a majority in Jordan and a large minority (at
least a fifth) in Israel, there are disarming similarities apart from the
timing. Increasing numbers of them are likely to boycott the polls in despair
at systems that seem designed to keep them out. Jordanians of
Palestinian descent make up less than a tenth of the parliament’s members,
thanks to gerrymandering**. In two mainly Palestinian districts of Amman,
the capital, 310,000 voters elect as many MPs as 122,000 tribesmen in Karak,
a southern town where Bedouin predominate. “It’s not the ballots that are
rigged as much as the system itself,” says Ahmad Obeidat, one …