Indirect elections were not attended by representatives of two regions, over which the government in Damascus has no control, namely the Kurds controlled by the northeastern region of the country and the South -Syrian province of Suvajd inhabited mainly by the Druzská minority. Therefore, thirty -two chairs in parliament are intended for these regions will remain unoccupied. The Election Commission has already announced that the vote has ended, and the final results are to be announced on Monday.
Members of local commissions voted in the Syrian National Library building and selected approximately 1,500 candidates, of which only 14 percent were women. According to election rules, candidates must not be supporters of the “past regime” and must not support the efforts to divide the country. MEPs will have a 30 -month mandate.
Among the candidates is Henry Hamr, a Syrian Jew who left the country a few decades and settled in the United States. According to AFP, he is the first Jewish candidate in the Syrian elections since the 40s of the last century.
Shara has previously stated that it is currently impossible to organize direct elections, referring to a large number of Syrians who do not have the necessary documents they lost over the 13 -year Civil War. In a speech in the Syrian National Library, Shara admitted that the election process was incomplete and that it was a “reasonable process that corresponds to the current situation and conditions in Syria”.
According to the Provisional Constitution adopted in March, the new parliament will perform legislative function until the new constitution is adopted, on the basis of which new elections are held. The former parliament of the loyal previous regime dissolved the insurgents shortly after President Assad fled the country.
Bashar Assad, who has been president since 2000 after the almost thirty-year government of his father Hafiz Assad, overthrows last year at the beginning of December, even a two-week offensive of insurgents led by the Sunni Islamist group Haját Tahrir Ašham (HTS) headed by Abu Muhammad. The HTS group then compiled the interim government and its leader, which in the past also tied to the terrorist network of Al-Qaeda, returned to the civic name Ahmad Shara and at the end of January became the provisional President of Syria.
