Reforming Jordan’s Gender Quota: Making Space for Women in Parliament

This quota was introduced in 2003 in response to the seemingly insurmountable barriers to women's participation in the 11th, 12th, and 13th Parliaments. Prior to the quota, women were rarely elected to Parliament, with only one woman winning a seat in the 12th Parliament, and she promptly lost her seat in the next elections. The current gender quota has undergone three permutations, beginning with the allocation of 6 of the 110 parliamentary seats (5%) to women, increasing to 12 of the 120 parliamentary seats (10%) in 2010, and changing to 15 of the 150 parliamentary seats for the 2013 elections. Despite these developments, women have never made up more than one-quarter of parliamentary candidates or one-sixth of parliamentarians. Female parliamentary candidacy reached its historical peak in 2007, when 199 of the 885 candidates (22%) were women – after which point the percentage of female candidates declined. Jordan's current Parliament has achieved Jordan's historically highest level of female representation, with women elected to 20 of the 130 seats (15%) - 5 women winning through competition. These achievements support the effectiveness of the gender quota as a tool for increasing women's representation in Parliament, but showcase the insufficiency of the quota's number of parliamentary seats. The quota's lack of support for equitable representation of women within the electoral lists is also a significant issue. In 2013, only 86 female candidates ran in lists, of the 830 total candidates running in lists (10.4%) – a lower rate than that of female candidacy. The quota perpetuates this disconnect between female candidates and electoral lists by applying only to the final election results, rather than engaging in the electoral mechanism of female inclusion within electoral lists; and by linking women's election within the quota to individually garnered votes, rather than votes for the female candidates' electoral lists. This has resulted in women being underrepresented in Jordan's Parliament, particularly in more populated areas such as Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa. Additionally, women from ethnically and societally marginalized groups are virtually unrepresented in Jordanian Parliament, despite the institution of minority quotas for Christians, Circassians, and Chechens. Jordan's population distribution is not accurately reflected among elected female parliamentarians, with 75% of Jordanians living in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa, but only represented by three female parliamentarians within the gender quota (2% of parliamentarians). In contrast, the 23 electoral districts used in the general elections better approximate Jordan's population distribution, providing Amman with 5 electoral districts and 25 parliamentary seats, Irbid with 4 electoral districts and 18 parliamentary seats, and Zarqa with 2 electoral districts and 10 parliamentary seats. However, electoral districts are not taken into account by the gender quota, allocating insufficient representation for women in more populated areas.