ammonnews.net

Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Students at the University of Jordan casted their ballots on Thursday for candidates to represent them in the Student Union, with elections concluding without any incidents.

The voting process concluded at 5:00 PM on Thursday, shortly before election committees announced the final results at the Student Affairs Department, after a week of competitive campaigning in the new elections system adopted by the university.

University of Jordan amended the Student Union Elections law to be more in tune with the amended 2012 Jordanian parliamentary elections law, where a 2-vote system gives each student a vote for candidates running individually on department levels, and another vote on a university-wide closed lists level.

398 candidates competed for 63 seats on individual level, and 4 closed lists competed over 9 seats allocated for the university-wide list level.

Five university-level lists competed for the 9 seats, with the "Nahda Generation" representing the Islamist current, and the "Awda" (Return) lists gaining the highest percentages of votes as of Thursday afternoon, Ammon News learned.

UJ election observers anticipated in statements to Ammon News that the participation rate in student elections will not surpass 65 percent, citing reasons that include the date of the elections (December 27th) which coincide with the beginning of final exam period, in addition to students' lack of knowledge of running candidates and the new elections 2-vote method.

Over 38,000 students are eligible to vote in the UJ Student Union elections.