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Entries in Muslim Brotherhood (Jordan) (3)

Thursday

Jan242013

Jordan (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Parliamentary Election --- But What Does It Mean?

Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 14:58 |

Scott Lucas in

Africa,

EA Global,

EA Live,

EA Middle East and Turkey,

Middle East and Iran

Election queue in Jordan on Wednesday (Photo: Khalil Mazraawi/AFP)

1530 GMT: Jordan. Opposition candidates have won a significant minority of the seats in Parliamentary elections, despite a boycott by some oppositon groups.

Initial results released by the Independent Electoral Commission had 18 opposition Islamists winning seats in the 150-seat Parliament. About a dozen leftists affiliated with pan-Arab nationalist groups, who are vocal critics of the Government. Fourteen victors from a centrist party are expected to lean toward the opposition rather than the Government in the legislature.

While supporters of King Abdullah claimed the majority of the seats, their vote total was far short of that in 2010.

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Jordan Feature: The Kingdom's "Syria Problem" (Pelham)

Monday, January 21, 2013 at 7:30 |

Scott Lucas in

EA Middle East and Turkey,

Middle East and Iran

Zaatari Refugee CampAs the uprising in Syria takes on an increasingly sectarian cast, Jordan has become a crucial center for the Islamist opposition — fighters, regime defectors, and their supporters, who speak of replacing the secular-Alawite regime with a new government that brings a Sunni majority to power. More extremist groups, like Jabhat al-Nasra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate based in and around Aleppo that wants to establish a caliphate, have strengthened their numbers with Jordanian recruits in the south, and are fighting to take the capital first. And while Jordan’s own secular monarchy contends with hundreds of thousands of newly arrived Syrian refugees, it is fearful that the conflict is also creating a powerful cause for its own restless Islamists.