More than 2 million registered for Jordan elections

More than two million voters have registered for Jordan's parliamentary elections due to take place by the end of 2012, the independent electoral commission announced on Monday. "2.27 million voters registered... or 70 percent of the electorate, by the close of registration," commission spokesman Hussein Abu Hani told AFP. Jordan has a population of 6.7 million, of whom 3.1 million are entitled to vote, according to the commission. King Abdullah II dissolved parliament at the start of October and called early elections without setting a date, although he wants the vote to be held by the end of the year. The Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition movement, has said it will boycott the elections in protest at constituency boundaries, saying they over-represent loyalist rural areas at the expense of urban areas seen as Islamist strongholds. It also wants a parliamentary system under which the prime minister is elected rather than named by the king.