For Jordan’s unemployed youth, a career opportunity: Local politics

In Ahmed Al Qubeilat’s village of Mleih in central Jordan, unemployment is a fact of life, especially for the young.

His cousins are jobless. So too is his neighbor, who holds a Ph.D. in medicine. Mr. Qubeilat has not found work since graduating with a B.A. in business administration in 2019.

Yet he now subscribes to the mantra that if you need a job – or a job done – do it yourself. He ran for local office.

“Now is the time to break the cycle and get involved,” the 27-year-old candidate says outside an election tent next to his home. “No one is more capable in addressing my generation’s challenges than we are.”

Jordan’s local elections this week featured something unexpected: a surge of unemployed young people who feel neglected by the political system running for office to create change themselves.

In what analysts are calling a “dress rehearsal” for the kingdom’s much-ballyhooed political reforms, more than 4,640 candidates from across the country ran for municipal and governorate council posts Tuesday.

Yet out of the many, a few dozen stood out: candidates in their 20s, all unemployed university graduates in the kingdom’s outer provinces. That is the exact demographic that has borne the brunt of the resource-poor kingdom’s economic crisis.

“In rural areas outside the capital, there is a high presence of youth, fewer opportunities, and greater challenges,” says Amer Al Sabaileh, a Jordanian geopolitical analyst. “Their parents have spent all their savings and resources to send them to university, and they are stuck at home unable to start their own lives or improve that of their families.”

A generation tired of waiting

Some 70% of Jordan’s 6.5 million citizens are under the age of 35, and 63% are under the age of 30. While unemployment hovers around 24% nationwide, unemployment among those under 30 is at 50%. University graduates spend years, even a decade or more, without work.

For some, their inability to move forward has led to apathy, rising drug abuse, depression, and a silent epidemic of suicides. Young Jordanians have climbed to the top of electricity towers and threatened to jump to protest their lack of prospects.

Yet these young Jordanians running for office have filled their years of waiting with something else: workshops and paid internships provided by royal foundations, international NGOs, the United Nations, and USAID designed to enhance their employability. The skills developed include public speaking and civic engagement and advocacy techniques.

“I have these skills, I have some experience, and I have many solutions to improve my community. Why shouldn’t I enter politics to help address our community’s problems?” says Nour Alawamreh.

The 26-year-old agricultural engineer launched her candidacy for the regional governorate council in the summer of 2021. Her goals included upgrading her local health center and scaling up her forestation project to reduce the flash-flooding that regularly hits her hometown of Maeen, in central Jordan.

How did she overcome resistance by some in her community to a “young upstart” running for office? By starting small, she says.

“I am careful not to overpromise,” Ms. Alawamreh says, stressing that she would first evaluate the provincial budget and available resources before proposing any project.

Ideas versus experience

The youth influx is an upset of the country’s established political culture.

In Jordanian politics, voters rarely flock to the exciting new prospect. Few fawn over fresh-faced candidates full of new ideas and youthful energy.

Instead, for most of the country’s history since independence, Jordanian voters have gravitated toward candidates with experience and long track records, such as a secretary-general at a ministry, a director at the phosphates factory, or the local school headmaster.

Another current in Jordanian politics is tribalism, with an entire family and wider clan pressured to support their candidate, a senior relative or that of an allied tribe.

It has led Jordanian voters to cast ballots for relatives or familiar faces with little debate on policy, sending stone-faced and graying men and bureaucrats who insist on doing things “the traditional way” to fill posts on municipal councils and in parliament.

“The experience gap was one of the biggest challenges we’ve had to overcome,” Mr. Qubeilat admits. “We had to break down the barrier that has prevented young people from taking part in political life.”

Rather than “experience,” the young Jordanians say they pitched something else: policy.

For Mr. Qubeilat, that meant sitting down with each voter to explain his electoral platform of rejuvenating farming, creating spinoff agricultural and tourism jobs, and hosting job training events in the village.

“All I ask is for people to just hear out my ideas,” Mr. Qubeilat says.

“We are trying to change the entire culture around voting, where the best ideas win,” says Mohammed Breizat, 29, an unemployed candidate also from Mleih.

People “feel for us”

Some older voters may be receptive.

“With one economic crisis after another, we can no longer afford to be governed by tribalism,” says Abu Maher, a 54-year-old voter in Madaba, central Jordan. “We should give young people a chance to improve their future,” he adds, though he declines to say whether he voted for a young candidate.

In the village of Lib, Qusay Alfugha, 28, darts and dashes across the courtyard of a polling center with a grin on his face, racing to the finish line to seal votes. 

Unemployed for the last eight years, he has modest but clear plans, including solar-powered streetlights, repaving streets, and expanding the government health clinic.

“Every household has an unemployed young man or woman waiting for a future that is not arriving. People don’t just support us, they feel for us,” Mr. Alfugha says as he escorts an elderly woman on his elbow to her registered polling booth. “This is helping us unleash our potential.”

Overcoming the trust gap

But significant challenges to opening Jordan’s political system remain.

Political parties were sidelined in local elections, and a mere 29.6% of eligible Jordanians voted in polls that saw rampant vote buying. The country’s opposition is marginalized and divided.

Despite calls by the king for young people to make their voices heard, the government has sent mixed messages by jailing young Jordanians for critical social media posts and joining protests.

“There is a trust gap among young Jordanians. Can young Jordanians join the political process and express themselves freely without paying a heavy price?” asks Oraib Rantawi, director of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies.

Yet all agree on the need to attract youth into the political process.

“If we can encourage youths to take part in local politics, it will reflect positively on the society as a whole and boost these areas that suffer from neglected services” and a lack of development, says Mr. Sabaileh, the analyst.

With votes still being certified Wednesday, it was unclear how many young candidates had won their seats. But already the candidates say they have an eye on the next local election, and one day, parliament.

“No matter what the end result is, it is enough that we as youths are able to get election experience,” says Ms. Alawamreh, the agricultural engineer, who according to early returns has won her regional council seat. “To see young people run for election, just to know that we can take part in the political process, that is the first step toward change.”

Three hours before polls’ closure on Tuesday, Mr. Alfugha rushes to a neighbor entering the polling station.

“Can I count on your vote?” Mr. Alfugha pleads in a last-minute pitch.

His neighbor smiles.

“Even if you don’t have my vote, you have my support,” she says. “You are the youth; you are our future. It’s your turn.”