As the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate with fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, behind the Gaza Strip, Jordan held elections to shape its new parliament.

The vote, which took place in September, had a turnout of just 36%t of the electorate and helped Islamists gain influence.

The Islamic Action Front, which is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation in the country, clearly won with 31 seats. A victory that quickly shook Jordan's usually more moderate political landscape, and led to the resignation of the prime minister, Bisher al- Khasawneh.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II has appointed his former chief of staff, Dr. Jafar Hassan, as the new prime minister and charged him to form a new government.

For the time being, the Islamic Action Front has been left out of the government, despite being the most voted party.

An election marked by Gaza

In order to understand the results in Jordan, it is key to understand what is happening to the west, in Gaza, with the fighting between Israel and Hamas. This conflict has spilled over into Lebanon.

“The Islamists campaigned on the Palestinian issue, and they used the name of the October 7th attack Al Aqsa as a way of showing that they are defending Islam's third holiest mosque”, explained the pastor and former president and spokesperson of the Evangelical Council of Jordan, David Rihani, to Sapanish news website Protestante Digital.

According to Rihani, “Gaza and the experience they have” were the two key elements in the Islamists victory at the polls.

“Furthermore, the low turnout of 31% helped the more organized Islamists and hurt the centrist nationalists and leftists. The latter did not pass the threshold and all the votes they got were wasted because they were not unified”, he adds.

A “a wake-up call” victory

The results, says Rihani, are “a wake-up call” given that “the Islamists are an experienced party and the rest of the parties, especially the new centrist nationalist parties have a long way to go”.

“Many parties have failed to pass the 2.5% threshold, which means that hundreds of thousands of votes have been wasted. However, the victory of the Islamic Action Front, with 31 seats out of 138, represents a major breakthrough”, stresses the pastor and Evangelical Council of Jordan spokesperson.

The fact that the new Prime Minister Jafar Hassan has not given the Islamists any cabinet seats shows that, for now, “they will be an opposition party, although in Jordan, politics also has its own quirks”.

A  Christian amomg Islamists

The elections have left a diverse parliamentary scene, with centrist, leftist, Islamist parties and with seats based on quota for Christians.

Rihani points out that the same elections in which the Islamic Action Front won the most seats are also the elections in which “ironically one Christian did well joining with the Islamic Action Front and won adding an additional seat for christens making record 10 seats, despite 9 based on a quota”.

“The irony is that one of the ten new Christian MPs ran as part of the local Islamist list in the capital, Amman, and won the seat over a much more popular Christian candidate, thanks to the huge support he got from Islamists”, says Rihani. 

“Christians were disappointed by the result of an MP elected by the Islamists to represent the most influential Christian community in the capital”, he adds.

Condemnation of the war

As the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates in Lebanon, Christians in Jordan “are very unhappy with the situation in Gaza, specially since several Palestinian Christians were also killed and the Baptist church in Gaza was destroyed”, underlines Rihani.

In Jordan, which already hosts thousands of refugees from other conflicts such as Afghanistan, the people are preparing for the consequences of the war between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, but are calling for peace to be achieved as soon as possible.

“In general, the Gaza conflict has been a unifying issue for all Jordanians and Arabs. We are all united on one thing: an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful resolution of the conflict”, concludes Rihani.