November 20, 2007

Elections Today ... Now and Then

Jordanian artist Wissam Shadid works on a 60 square metre piece of graffiti in Amman as part of a campaign led by the Jordan Media Strengthening Programme, an IREX media initiative, and other civil society organisations, aimed at stimulating more public participation in the November 20 parliamentary polls.
Hopefully we see more of these beautiful Graffiti after the elections. I hope that the same effort and enthusiasm will continue in promoting for awareness, volunteering, education, development, etc.
Many of our limited resources were spent on these campaigns. Will anyone be interested to spend as much money as they did in the last month to support a cause?
I heard that a single campaign cost about a $1 million. Not sure how much money were spent in total, add to that the lost opportunities of time and effort spent in campaigning. Will the same people be as much excited and aggressive in working for Amman city and Jordan? I wish it will be worth the effort to get the right people the right positions, so we say we do have an effective democracy.
In these coming years, Jordan is facing great opportunities if not challenges to stand as one of the best developing places in the region. This can be done if we have an effective leaders who have the competency to change and develop.
lets hope they will. But, I don't know yet who deserve my vote and whom I will be voting for!!!
Maybe I need another round in the streets of Amman to understand these banners, and ofcourse they were posted in the streets of the city targetting drivers since our lovely public spaces are streets made for people driving their cars.
So I wounder, after 4 years .... to be continued!This is something to talk about in my next post, like what most people say: After The Elections!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

there are three types of voters in this jordanian election: tribal voters who are electing a relative; beneficiaries of the candidate, who will get jobs if he wins; and idiots whoes only purpose is to make the elections look good.


you know darn well only regime candidates will be guaranteed the absolute majority and the rest are the icing on the cake. you helped provide a cover for a farce. that only right you have in this election is a cosmetic one: to make it look real.

Anonymous said...

I think the elections have exposed how many pro-government propagandists are on the Jordanian Blogospheres. So much for patriotism. I am begging to think the Jordanian blogosphere is funded by the government since I can't tell what most of you do for a living.

Amman Voice said...

Not sure what you mean Ezzat by Jordanian Blogsphere funded by the government.

We shall all participate in the development of our country. We live here, we pay a lot of taxes and we are not going to just depend on the government or the parliment to do what they are supposed to. There are many avenues to be a patriot in this country, and it doesn't have to be political.

Each one of us can do something, from planting a tree to donating money to the poor, to ...etc.

Amman voice is a very new blog and it's goal is to promote awareness about Amman urban development and the neighbourhood we inhabit by communicating with individuals like yourself and discuss the issues that concerns all of us.

Lets hope we see more work coming out of this.

Anonymous said...

As long as the "tribal labels" mentality controls , then dreamers dreams wouldn’t be anything else but dreams , when an ordinary employee still won’t be permitted to contact the main director of his small governmental institution , except after he –ironically- contacts other irrelevant people , labels made them legal of course, & thanks to them , he is finally offered 15 minutes to explained his cause to receive that typical answer" sorry we can't do anything for you"... bottom line, there is a long way to go on before people start to –believe- in a colorfully written , nicely composed statements...