Mixed reactions as Syria holds indirect vote for first post-Assad parliament

DAMASCUS — Syria held its first post-Assad elections on Sunday: an indirect vote to select members of the People’s Assembly, the country’s legislative body, for a 30-month extendable term. 

Transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa praised the “historic moment” as voting got underway, saying “Syria was able in just a few months, to engage in an electoral process suited for its current circumstances.” 

It is an unprecedented and unusual electoral process for the country. There has been no public campaigning, and most citizens do not have the opportunity to vote for their representatives. In three provinces that remain outside of the central government’s control—Suwayda, Raqqa and Hasakah—elections are postponed, as government officials cite security concerns. 

Those voting on Sunday were members of district-level electoral colleges formed by Syria’s Higher Committee for Parliamentary Elections, a 10-member body appointed by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. 

Electors voted for two-thirds of the 210-member People’s Assembly from a list of 1,578 candidates, while the president will directly appoint the remaining 70 members. Nineteen remaining seats are reserved for Suwayda, Raqqa and Hasakah. Early results were expected late on Sunday, with final results to be announced on Monday.

Many Syrians consider the indirect process to be a pragmatic necessity, given the challenges the country faces. No census has been conducted since 2010, while millions of citizens are internally displaced or refugees abroad, and many have lost basic identity documents during the war. The country is also emerging from more than 50 years of Assad family rule, sham elections and systematic suppression of robust political parties.

Others, however—including an array of Syrian human rights organizations—say the election does not meet basic democratic standards. And, as late as election day, some Damascus residents remained confused about the selection process, believing that a direct vote was taking place.

‘Promising’ elections

Mazen al-Sadat, 69, a retired engineer, believed that a direct vote similar to Lebanon’s electoral system was being held when Syria Direct spoke to him on Sunday, and hoped to “choose representatives who I trust.” He called the elections “a new, advanced step in this country—real elections, not a formality as before—toward real representation of Syria’s [ethnic and religious] components.”

Others who were following the indirect process more closely in the run-up to Sunday’s vote felt the system, while less than ideal, was realistic given Syria’s current challenges.

“I see the coming elections as promising and I hope [those elected] will be part of the political transformation in a positive manner,” Sidra al-Azzi, 20, a third-year engineering student in Damascus, told Syria Direct. “They don’t need to be ideal for the first time for this new government, it’s normal for it to make mistakes and not please everyone.”

“I believe most candidates are qualified, regardless of how they became electors—I see that most were primarily selected because of their experience and qualifications,” al-Azzi said. She thought the elections would be “a fair way to really find out the opinion of the people.”

“The elections are a good step because the country needs a legislative council,” echoed Ali Suleiman, 39, a civil activist from Raqqa living in Damascus. “From my perspective, it’s normal for elections to be representative and incomplete because the infrastructure for elections is not ready,” he added, citing the lack of a census.

“The problem is people are thinking they are living in a well-established democracy, rather than a failed state moving towards state-building,” he added.

Ultimately, the current electoral process is “a necessity and not ideal,” Suleiman said. There was no political life [under Assad]. If you want democracy, you need a democratic infrastructure, starting with allowing civil society organizations to work, and more,” he said. 

Syria’s interim constitution—the constitutional declaration published in March—“guarantees the work of associations and unions,” although it leaves the formation of political parties subject to a “new law.”

Concentrating executive power

Others, like Muhammad al-Midani, 27, who owns a coffee shop in Damascus, said the parliamentary elections did not count for much. “Anything below presidential elections is not beneficial,” he told Syria Direct. “They don’t matter as much to me as the head of the government does, that is the president—he is ruling everything currently.” Al-Midani initially thought that general presidential elections were being held.

Al-Midani feels the power of the Syrian people is increasingly “shrinking,” becoming concentrated within the hands of the president, who he believes has been chosen by “external countries, whether Arab countries or Western countries.”

Syrian and international organizations have raised similar concerns that the constitutional declaration—which will govern the country until a new constitution is drafted and ratified by the parliament—concentrates presidential power and undermines judicial independence. 

Al-Midani is pessimistic that the parliament could play a role in checking or balancing presidential power. “The president of the Syrian Arab Republic has veto power against laws or approves them. In the end, we go back to the president, unless [there is a] two-thirds vote to override the presidential veto, and this is impossible,” he said. 

Alongside al-Sharaa’s direct appointment of one-third of the legislature, the replacement of any member of the People’s Assembly who resigns, dies or is disqualified will also be chosen by the president.

Syria’s People’s Assembly building ahead of parliamentary elections, 2/10/2025 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

‘It’s not an election, it’s selection’

Al-Midani’s skepticism is shared by a coalition of 14 civil society organizations that released a statement in mid-September, saying the indirect electoral process is “plagued by deep structural flaws, rendering it far from meeting even the minimum international standards for political participation,” even as they acknowledged the “difficulty of holding direct general elections at this stage.” 

“I have a fundamental problem with calling this process an electoral process,” said Bassam al-Ahmad, executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), one of the statement’s signatories. “There is no electoral process; it’s not an election, it’s selection. The president of the republic appoints a third [of parliamentarians] and appoints a group that appoints the rest.”

The joint statement also noted a lack of “independent legal oversight,” given that appeals committees—legal bodies that resolve electoral disputes—are linked to the executive rather than to an independent judiciary.

Electoral committees have appointed candidates under unknown criteria. Rani Ali, 41, a feminist and human rights activist, presented herself as a candidate but did not make the final cut of 1,578 candidates. Until now, she does not know why she was not selected for her home district of al-Nabek, in Reef Dimashq. 

“I met all the qualifications, but each province or region chose based on specific criteria, hidden criteria,” she said. While she is aware of other women in her district who also applied, only male candidates were ultimately selected. Of the final candidates, only 14 percent are women.

“Most of the candidates were outside of Syria or living in areas outside of the former regime’s control, and have good relations with the current administration,” she said.

Ali was initially reluctant to participate in the elections, but eventually decided to present herself. “If I and other people who believe in the public interest—who believe in the need for change—all decide not to do anything, we would be abandoning the spaces that we’re supposed to be fighting for,” she said.

Al-Ahmad criticized “loose terms” surrounding who is excluded from the elections. In the presidential decree laying out the electoral process, any individual deemed a “supporter of the former regime,” member of “terrorist organizations” or advocate of “separation, division, or reliance on foreign powers” is not allowed to participate.

“The [electoral] committee could investigate millions of people based on the accusation of being former regime, separatist, [or a] terrorist,” al-Ahmad said, while calls for decentralization or federalism could be labeled separatism. Ali does not know if she was disqualified based on these grounds.

Al-Ahmad expects the People’s Assembly formed by the current elections to be aligned with the doctrine of the existing government. “There may be some opposing voices in the [legislative] council, however…you will see that the results are a council that agrees with the ideology of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) or the new regime. There won’t be real representation,” he argued.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is the opposition faction al-Sharaa led in Idlib. HTS was formally dissolved in January, but former fighters and members of the HTS-backed Salvation Government in Idlib are strongly represented throughout the country’s new government. However, only two former HTS members sit on the 11-member supreme electoral committee hand-picked by al-Sharaa.

Al-Ahmad called Sunday’s elections the latest episode in a series of failures by the transitional government: “There was the message of national dialogue and it wasn’t national dialogue, there was the message of transitional justice and it was only limited to the regime’s violations.”

“A lot of transparency was lost, even at the level of national dialogue,” Ali echoed. “They said a report would be issued and ultimately nothing happened.”

“You get the sense that they’re just checking boxes.”