Syria's 4th parliamentary vote after uprising criticized as 'farce'

For the fourth time since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, residents in government-controlled areas are going to the polls in what critics call an electoral farce to help shore up President Bashar al-Assad's standing.

Voting started on Monday in all 8,151 electoral centres distributed across 15 voting districts in government-held areas, with 1,516 candidates competing for the 250 seats in parliament.

"We are in a new phase in which we look forward to building a modern Syria," Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnos said, while casting his vote. The judge responsible for overseeing the elections told the state-run SANA news that the election "is proceeding in accordance with the provisions of the General Elections Law."

But a Syrian source said the vote is likely to produce new faces, but no surprises, as the majority of seats will be won by Al-Assad's ruling Al-Baath party. A Lebanon-based academic agreed.

It is "a farce in itself" that the Assad government is trying to restore its legitimacy in the country, Makram Rabbah, political anaylst and professor at the American University of Beirut told dpa.

"No one in their right mind can speak of democratic, transparent elections if the country is occupied by the Syrian dictatorship or foreign forces," said Rabbah.

In the last parliamentary elections in 2020, Assad’s Baath Party won 166 seats, in addition to 17 others from allied parties, and 67 seats went to independent candidates.

Safaa Ahmed, a teacher, told dpa that she wants accountability.

"We want the members of the People's Assembly to convey the truth about what the people are suffering and hold accountable the government that is negligent in serving the people."

"We want to combat corruption and provide a decent living for the citizens. We want electricity, we want fuel, we want a decent living," she added.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told reporters, while casting his ballot, that "today we are in a transitional phase, linked to visions about the role of the state, state institutions in general, policies in general, and trends, and it is the duty of the People’s Assembly to be part of this developmental phase.”

Meanwhile, in the southern province of Sweida, where people have been protesting for nearly a year calling for new reforms, some anti-government groups called for boycotting the elections.

A medical source in the area said that a young man was shot while members of the Sweida regional police opened fire to disperse a group of young men who tried to stop voting at a polling station.

Neither Syrians living in the last rebel stronghold in north-west Syria, nor people living under the US-backed Kurdish rebel groups in north-east Syria will vote.

Unlike the presidential elections, Syrians living in the diaspora are not eligible to vote in the parliamentary elections. There was no clear number of how many people are actually eligible to vote.