A basket of flowers stood in for a dark-skinned female candidate on some election campaign posters in Aqaba, Jordan.
Alia Abu Haleel had her photos on the streets of Aqaba replaced for "fear of attack by the local community," said the team running her campaign, according to Al Bawaba .
“Her pictures are often vandalized and thrown on the ground or drawn on with pictures and with slogans," the team said.
Reportedly, Haleel chose flowers for personal reasons. But people are pinning this on racism and sexism.
A staff writer at Muslimgirl.com drives the absurdity of the incident home in a satirical post.
"THIS JUST IN: Eid-ul-Adha will be on Sept. 12, Daesh has claimed responsibility for the lunar cycle, and a basket of flowers is running for the upcoming Jordanian parliamentary elections," writes the author.
"But that’s not even the worst part… Personally, I am deeply offended by the fitnah these flowers are undoubtedly causing. They’re obviously far too pretty and colorful to be out and exposed in public this way."
Jordan will be holding its parliamentary elections on September 20, the first since electoral reforms were passed in 2015.
The number of female candidates has gone up 258 from 215, according to Asma Khader, Executive Director of Sisterhood is Global Institiute (SIGI). But there's still a lot of work to do.
Of the 230 lists running, 86 percent feature only one female candidate, whereas 10 percent have more than one female running, according to Al Bawaba .
Seven lists are male-only, and two lists are all-female.