Maaita: Empowering university students politically is a national responsibility for all

June 15, 2022 
The Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Independent Electoral Commission, Engineer Musa Al-Maaita, stressed the importance of strengthening the role of university students, and the need to empower them in political life, in line with the royal directives and the outputs of the Royal Commission for the Modernization of the Political System, which reflected on amendments and legislation constitutionally and legally, by reducing the age of the candidate and including young people in the national lists in the election law.
He met with deans of student affairs at public and private universities to talk about the program "I participate/universities", where he reviewed the authority's plans in raising awareness, education and strategy that stimulate the participation of groups of society in the political process at large and elections in particular, and unveiled a system that clarifies and promotes the promotion of youth participation in party work.
Al-Maaita explained that the I am participating program aims to educate students in the areas of democracy, citizenship, the rule of law, the role of political parties as well as fair elections and local government.
Al-Maaita addressed the deans of student affairs the need to support the idea of a program (I participate / universities), which enhances the role of Jordanian youth in dialogue and political activities and empower them in universities and qualify them to engage in political life and decision-making, as empowering them is a national responsibility borne by all.
Al-Maaita added that the program (I participate/universities), implemented on the day twelve universities by the Independent Electoral Commission and through the partnership project, and in thirteen universities through the Crown Prince's Foundation, and is currently coordinating their follow-up through the Authority, in order to unite the effort in cooperation with the Crown Prince Foundation.
Al-Maaita reviewed the program I share in numbers where he showed that since the project moved to the Authority in March 2022, the project received (4,333) applications for registration and started training (2881) of them, after revising the applications and graduating from them (1163) Of these, 723 are students and 440 are students in the basic stage of the program, 584 are trained in advanced school, and 295 graduate, including (198) female students and (97) students. During this period, a total of (903) training sessions were held for both phases, including (390) online sessions and (513) face-to-face sessions.
Al-Maaita added that the training content of the sessions was based on the needs and aspirations of the next political period such as training on democracy, human rights, the electoral process, political parties, citizenship and tolerance.

"Today, we all have an electoral administration, academic institutions, civil society, media and government, the responsibility to promote the participation of young people in parties and political action, to invest in their energies and abilities, and to spread the ideology of collective action through political parties, as a single way to political action, and to be an alternative to the language of grumbling, rejection, hate speech and sometimes even extremism among a group of our youth, as well as to open the areas and horizons of youth political action in universities, allowing law and regulations and in order to aim at the purpose of our youth," he said. To implement the vision of His Majesty the Hashemite King Abdullah II, son of Hussein, and to follow up directly from His Highness the Crown Prince.
He also praised the efforts of universities in providing possible facilities for the implementation of the program (I participate) and wished that Jordanian universities will remain a platform for collective and intellectual political action in the greed of today's generation and tomorrow's renaissance for Jordan and its youth.
In turn, the Deans of Student Affairs praised the role of the Independent Electoral Commission in promoting youth participation in political life in general and elections in particular, as well as promoting the values, principles and concepts of democracy.