College student Mohannad Alhami believes that young Jordanians can change the country if they make a strong showing in the November 9 parliamentary elections.

To urge his peers to exercise their constitutional right and pick a Lower House that is up to their expectations, Alhami resorted to Facebook, where almost a million Jordanians, most of them under 25 years old, have accounts.

Along with friends and classmates at the Hashemite University, he created a group on the social network to encourage "effective" participation in the upcoming elections.

"Our group seeks to motivate voters to take part in the elections; we are not endorsing any candidate or party. Through our group, we seek to encourage people to elect the best to represent us and serve the Kingdom," Alhami told The Jordan Times over the phone Sunday.

"This can be a turning point in the elections and hopefully we will have a better and more effective Lower House."

“Young people do not tolerate reading for long time. It is faster and more convenient for them to check their e-mails and this way we can get our message through,” Alhami added.

He is not alone in harnessing Facebook, which is being used for more purposes than election awareness. The social networking site has become a platform both for debate over potential candidates and promotion of would-be MPs.

The groups explicitly target young people, who make up a large majority of the Kingdom’s Facebook users, and who several of the groups’ creators say can make a difference in the next elections.

There are 923,400 Facebook users in Jordan as of Sunday, of whom 41.6 per cent are female, according to www.checkfacebook.com.

The website’s data show that 45.1 per cent of these users are 18-24 years old, while 25.9 per cent are aged between 25 and 34.

Facebook users in Jordan account for 0.19 per cent of the social networking site’s global audience of about 474 million, according to the same data.

Although Walid Hamdan, a student at Palestine Technical University, is a resident of the West Bank city of Tulkarem and cannot vote, he has created a group to gather support for one of his Jordanian relatives who plans to run in the elections. So far he has more than 1,600 followers.

The law prohibits campaigning until 30 days before the election, and no individual is counted as a candidate until he or she applies successfully for a place on the ballot, but it is common for prospective candidates to unofficially announce their intent to run months earlier.

“I created a group on Facebook to promote my relative because Facebook is free, easy to use and through it I can get access to thousands of young voters, who are the majority of Facebook users and the community in Jordan,” Hamdan told The Jordan Times over the phone from Tulkarem on Sunday.

Other Facebook groups call on members of tribes to agree on one candidate that represents the whole tribe, triggering debate among members of the same clan on how best to choose a candidate and who is the best choice.

In their comments on these groups’ message boards, some members call for unity, some promote a certain candidate, and others call for boycotting the elections entirely.

For Ahmad Rousan, social media provides a “very smart” way to encourage wider participation in the elections, as well as a potential business opportunity.

Rousan, who holds a master’s degree in information and communications technology from Australia, created a group called “Jordan Elections 2010”, which seeks to inform people about candidates running for seats in Parliament.

The IT expert, who only retuned to Amman about 40 days ago and has been looking for a job since then, also decided to launch a website to capitalise on the growing use of the Internet as a campaign and outreach tool.

“The website I am working on will be launched in one week’s time. I will post all news and activities related to the elections. At the same time, candidates can post their CVs, objectives and activities, as well as their pictures and videos of activities they hold, in return for nominal fees,” Rousan told The Jordan Times on Monday.

“Maybe candidates do not have Facebook accounts. But their children, nephews, or young relatives have accounts, so they can make use of this tool. In one click, we can inform thousands of Facebook users about the elections, candidates and news,” said Rousan.