In this context of grave ethnic cleavage, Abdullah II has continued the
custom of keeping West Bankers out of most major state-security posts.
The king has also condoned gerrymandering in order to overrepresent
East Bankers and underrepresent West Bankers in the lower house. Thus
winning a seat in heavily Palestinian Amman takes four times the votes
that are typically needed in tribal strongholds such as the southern cities
of Karak, Tafila, and Ma’an. The palace has also played a role in
crafting an electoral system based on the Single Non-Transferable Vote
(SNTV), which is used nowhere else in the world save Afghanistan. The
system favors the winning of seats by individual leaders (in Jordan, these
are often tribal figures) and makes the formation of large party coalitions
among Palestinians difficult. The electoral-law status quo precludes fair
representation for Jordan’s ethnic-Palestinian majority, and in doing so
gives the non-Palestinian East Bankers reason not to press for democratic
reforms that could place them under the rule of a hostile majority.