After decades of dictatorship and civil war, Syria chooses a new parliament next Sunday. But not all Syrians will vote. There will be no electoral parts or campaigns. So how will the statement work? After more than fifty years of dictatorship and a decade of civil war, Syria will hold its first parliamentary elections on October 5th. But the vote process for the composition of a new parliament is far from simple – and is full of disputes and disputes.
Not all Syrians will go to the polls. There will be no political parties or posters of the campaign. Instead, the votes will be issued by several committees, which is why the first elections of the country after the dictatorship are described as “indirect”.
The dictatorship in Syria was founded by a coup in 1971, when Hafez Al-Assad took power. In 2000, his son, Bashar al-Assad, began to govern until the fall of the regime in December 2024.
“Reality in Syria does not allow traditional elections, given the presence of millions of displaced people inside and outside the country, the absence of official documents and a fragile legal structure”, said the Syrian provisional government in a declaration at the end of June, explaining why the elections should be indirect.
For this reason, the process to elect a new popular assembly will take place in different stages. Also in June, the Supreme Committee so called for the elections of the Popular Assembly, consisting of 11 members, was appointed directly by the Syrian transition government to supervise the elections.
This supreme committee in turn appointed below in the 62 electoral districts of Syria. The districts should be taken into consideration based on the size of the population, which therefore makes some of them have more than one place.
In the next step, below the name directly between 30 and 50 members to represent each president of his district. These people will form an “electoral college”, that is, a group of voters in charge of choosing parliamentarians.
Series of “qualifications”
In appointing these people, the subcommittee should take into account different characteristics, including qualifications such as university diplomas and professions, “social influence” – that is, people who have been active and known in their communities – in addition to diversity, ensuring that there are disabled people with disabilities and former prisons.
In addition to attributes such as age and citizenship, members of the electoral college must not have been part of the old regime (unless they abandoned during the civil war), being services in safety forces or having criminal records. And at least 20% of the members should be women. Overall, throughout Syria, college must have between 6,000 and 7,000 people.
Concerns about presidential power
According to Sana, the official press agency of Syria, the final lists of the candidates were published on September 18. Any citizen now has three days to resort to none of the candidates who consider it should not be on the list.
After the approval of the members of the electoral college, some will campaign to obtain places at the Popular Assembly. There are no political parties and the campaign is not public. It should last a week and only occurs among the members of the electoral college.
Finally, on the day of the elections, the entire electoral college will vote in 121 members for the new Syrian parliament.
The electoral process had already been postponed, that the authorities attributed to the fact that there were many candidates interested in joining the electoral college. This process, however, must be completed by the end of September.
Initially, there were 140 controversial chairs, but the vote was postponed to various parts of Syria, such as the Sweida region, dominated by the minority of Drusa and in some parts of Raqqa and Hassakeh, controlled by the Kurdish minority. This means that about 19 chairs will not be chosen this month.
The government of the Syrian transition stated that the elections have been postponed to these areas due to safety problems. In recent months, these areas have been the scene of the intercom and sectarian violence, which caused the death of thousands of people. But in fact, the elections have been postponed because the Syrian government does not control these areas.
Upon completion of the electoral process, 70 other chairs will be added to the new Parliament. But these parliamentarians will be elected directly by the President to Interim, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, a former militia leader who came in office after his faction, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, brought the revolt to overthrow the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Disputes and conflicts
There are positive aspects in the process, according to Haid Haid, Syrian analyst and a non -resident senior member of the Arab reform initiative based on Paris at the beginning of this month.
“In the document, the electoral process introduces modest but significant improvements, with multiple consultancy phases, appeal mechanisms and measures to increase the participation of women,” he said.
International observers were also invited to monitor the process. In addition, the Supreme Committee is more diversified than other initiatives and is not dominated by the members of the Hayat Tharir Al-Sham, said Haid.
But the process is also “obscured by structural ambiguity and problems pending that make it vulnerable to manipulation,” he said, claiming that this can involve the lack of trust from the community.
The reports of journalists in Syria indicate that much of the population recognizes that at this moment there is no way to perform direct elections. A recent survey conducted by the Arabic Center for Research and Political Studies, based in Qatar, between July and August, stressed that 57% of the almost 4,000 respondents consider the positive political moment.
But other Syrians are much more critical, stating that the highly controlled process is a superficial “channel”, a way to legitimize the transition government without really seeking true consent or democracy.
Process questions
Some of the most critical voices of these elections are members of Syrian minorities. In recent weeks, representatives of various minority groups have published letters or declarations that criticize the process, calling it illegitimate.
At the beginning of this week, 14 different groups of civil society also published a document that recommended changes, arguing that various aspects of the elections simply give the president Al-Sharaa an excessive control over the electoral process and on the final composition of the popular assembly.
According to the temporary constitution of Syria, the presidential decrees can only be revoked by the majority of two thirds in the popular assembly. This is the reason why the 70 representatives elected directly by Al -Sharaa are so important -if they represent only their interests, it will be very difficult to reach a majority of two thirds against the president in Parliament.
They were also critical of the role that the new popular assembly will play when it is finally elected. The main task will be to reformulate a series of old laws, approve new laws to open the country and write a new constitution, as well as preparing the direct elections in the next three or five years.
Source: Terra
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