This recurring phenomenon raises questions about the nature of the competition for the speakership of the House of Representatives, the extent to which initial nominations are based on clear programs and visions for managing parliamentary work, and whether the duration of the speakership, which the 2022 constitutional amendment returned to one solar year instead of two according to Article "69" of the Constitution, is commensurate with the intensity of the competition for this position, and the accompanying extensive parliamentary maneuvering and political friction that may come at the expense of legislative and oversight work.
Observations are not limited to the multiplicity of candidates and their withdrawals, but extend to the mechanisms governing these withdrawals, and the interventions that sometimes accompany them by some deputies and political figures to persuade some candidates to concede the race in favor of others. These are practices that reflect the continued presence of social and personal considerations in managing the competition, such that candidacy sometimes appears to start with the logic of "faza'a" (tribal/social mobilization), and ends with withdrawal in response to pressures and collective consensus, rather than institutional political understandings based on clear foundations.
In contrast to these practices, the current elections highlight the noticeable activity of parliamentary blocs, which are intensifying their meetings and communications to form alliances and reach consensus on the distribution of seats in the Permanent Bureau and the chairmanship of committees. Although this movement can be considered a positive indicator of the growth of collective work within the House, it raises a legitimate question about the extent to which this activity will continue after the results are announced, and that it is not limited to the election season.
It is required that the role of parliamentary blocs does not end with the conclusion of the speakership elections, and that their activity is not limited to negotiating the distribution of positions in the Permanent Bureau, but rather that they transform into effective parliamentary frameworks that adopt legislative and oversight programs, unify the positions of their members regarding draft laws, and exercise the oversight role of the House.
Linked to this is another question about the cohesion of parliamentary blocs and their relationship with the political parties to which their members belong, especially with the emergence of more than one candidate from some blocs, and the lack of internal agreement on a single candidate to represent them. This reality raises legitimate questions about the existence of internal democratic mechanisms for selecting candidates, the extent to which members adhere to collective decisions, and the limits of the relationship between the parliamentary bloc and the party leadership in determining positions and choices.
On the positive side, it is to the credit of the House of Representatives' Rules of Procedure that it has strengthened the presence of women in the Permanent Bureau, by allocating one of the two positions of the Speaker’s assistants to women in the event that a woman does not win the position of Speaker or one of the two Deputies, pursuant to Paragraph "B" of Article "7" of the Rules of Procedure. However, this text has referred the regulation of this right to special instructions issued by the Permanent Bureau for this purpose, without it being clear whether these instructions have been issued so far.
The success of the political modernization experiment is not measured by the number of parliamentary blocs and their ability to decide the elections of the Permanent Bureau before they are held, but by the extent to which they transform into effective political frameworks within the House. The real competition is not over who will hold the speakership of the House of Representatives for one year, but over who can improve its performance throughout the year, consolidate its constitutional role in legislation and oversight, and strengthen citizens' confidence in the parliamentary institution.
* Professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Jordan
