Khaberni - The Jordanian Shura Party, New Approach, and National Integration are moving towards a merger under the name of the Change Party, according to Ahmed Abu Zeid, the General Secretary of the party registry in the Independent Election Authority.
The Authority is waiting for the three parties to complete their conferences to finalize the merger within weeks.
Abu Zeid stated that the new merger of the Jordanian Shura Party, New Approach, and National Integration comes after a series of mergers of several centrist parties with similar programs and ideas, such as Will and Progress which merged into the Initiative Party, the National Current parties, Union Party, Youth Party, Blessed Land Party which merged into the National Union Party, and the Followers Party which merged with the Growth Party and adopted "Growth" as their name.
Abu Zeid explained that the judiciary is still looking into two cases to dissolve two parties based on lawsuits filed by the board of commissioners of the authority due to financial violations; the judiciary has differentiated one of them and the other is still being considered by the appeals court.
The Independent Authority continues its sessions with the parties to govern their basic systems
The Independent Authority continues the sessions with the parties regarding the governance of their basic systems; 15 parties have met the governance conditions while the Authority is still studying the systems of another 15 parties. Two parties are suspended from operations because the judiciary is considering their dissolution, according to Abu Zeid.
85,425 members affiliated with parties in Jordan
The party clock in the party registry shows 85,425 members affiliated with the Jordanian parties, 57,017 of them males and 42,083 females.
The governorates of the capital, Irbid, Zarqa, and Balqa have the highest rates of affiliated members.
Abu Zeid emphasizes that the number is not a criterion for the success or failure of the party experience, noting that party success is measured by the number of believers in the party idea and the extent of their harvest of votes in elections, not by the number of affiliates.
According to Abu Zeid, the percentage of women in leadership positions within the parties has reached 18%.
The Independent Authority receives final party budgets in preparation for offering financial contributions
According to Abu Zeid, the Authority is receiving final party budgets until March 31 of the current year to study them in preparation for providing financial contributions to them in June according to the law.
The General Secretary of the party registry emphasized that the Authority has the right to engage an external auditor to study the party budgets, as well as for the board of commissioners of the Authority to also engage the Audit Bureau to observe those budgets and present them to the Authority to deal with them according to the law, confirming that the Authority is the sole regulatory body for the parties.
Regarding new requests, no new party establishment requests have been received by the Authority; only 3 are still under consideration, according to Abu Zeid.
Continuing to enhance the capabilities of political parties in cooperation with international partners
The Independent Authority has implemented and continues to deploy a range of training projects in cooperation with international partners to enhance the capabilities of political parties in various legal, skill-based, communication, good governance, alliance-building sectors, and other areas related to youth, women, and people with disabilities.
The Authority has also conducted training programs specially designed to train parties on preparing financial budgets and managing financial resources wisely.
Among these projects, according to Abu Zeid, are a program to define orientations and identify party identity, and another for building visual identity.
Abu Zeid revealed projects on automation of procedures between the parties and the authority, and creating an infrastructure for an electronic system to automate correspondences, budgets, and their attachments.
