A combined 6,000 electors will cast ballots at regional electoral colleges starting at roughly 9 a.m. and closing at around 5 p.m. local time.
Members of Syria’s electoral college will cast ballots in an indirect vote on Oct. 5 for new lawmakers, a first since the ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose opposition forces toppled Assad’s regime in December 2024, is looking to consolidate power over Syria after 14 years of war and sectarian violence that have beset the Middle East nation.
A combined 6,000 electors will cast ballots at regional electoral colleges starting at roughly 9 a.m. and closing at around 5 p.m. local time.
The Sharaa-appointed committee approved 1,570 candidates who displayed their platforms in seminars and debates over the past week, although public posters and billboards were not visible in major cities.
The vote on Sunday will determine who holds two-thirds of Syria’s 210-seat parliament, with results expected the same evening. The legislature won’t be formally established until Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda member, selects the remaining one-third members.
Syrian authorities have said they embraced this system of voting rather than universal suffrage, or direct citizen voting, due to a lack of reliable population data, and after the war displaced millions of citizens. Votes in three provinces held by minority groups were postponed due to security and political reasons, resulting in 19 empty seats in parliament.
That includes a province in the northeast held by Kurdish-led authorities and the province of Sweida, mostly held by Druze armed groups.
Some have criticized this move, arguing that a partial and indirect vote is not representative and is overly centralized.
In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, which is cut in half by the winding Euphrates River, the government-held western half is holding votes on Sunday, while the Kurdish-controlled east will have no election.
Critics have also said the indirect vote lacks the guarantee of participation from women or religious and ethnic minorities.
Women constitute at least 20 percent of candidates in about a quarter of electoral districts, and 10 percent or fewer of the candidates are women in half of the districts.
By Jacob Burg
