Syria held its first parliamentary elections on Sunday since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government last December — a process that, while described by the new leadership as a step toward democracy, remains tightly controlled by President Ahmed al-Sharra’s administration.
The elections filled 241 seats in Syria’s legislature, the People’s Assembly, through a largely indirect process dominated by government appointees. Of the 210 seats contested, 70 were directly appointed by al-Sharra, while the remaining 140 were selected by local electoral colleges whose delegates were themselves appointed by Damascus.
Twenty seats were left vacant, as elections did not take place in the northern provinces of Raqqa and Hassakeh — controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — or in the southern Suwayda province, where Druze communities continue to operate autonomously. The government cited “security concerns” for the cancellations.
Calling the vote an “historic moment,” al-Sharra presented the elections as the start of a new political era. However, the process fell far short of the free and open elections he had promised following his sudden rise to power last year.
Former members of the Baath Party and ex-supporters of the Assad regime were barred from participation unless they had defected early in the civil war.
Al-Sharra — once an Al-Qaeda insurgent in Iraq and founder of al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch — was portrayed in Western media as a “reformed jihadist” supportive of democracy and pluralism. Yet Sunday’s vote indicates that his government has adopted many of the same authoritarian practices as its predecessor, maintaining strict control over political participation.
Unlike under Assad, however, the new parliament’s members ran as independents rather than as part of a formal ruling party. While political parties have not been formally outlawed, those that operated under Assad have either been banned or ceased functioning. Armed factions that had fought Assad, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the successor to al-Nusra Front), formally dissolved in January to integrate into the new government framework.