Syria to Hold First Elections Since Assad’s Fall Amid Questions of Inclusivity and Representation
Syria holds its first parliamentary elections since Assad's fall, with only partial public voting and one-third of seats appointed by the president. Key regions like Kurdish-held northeast and Sweida are excluded, raising inclusivity concerns.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – Syria is preparing to hold parliamentary elections on Sunday, marking the first such vote since the overthrow of longtime autocrat Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in a swift rebel offensive in December 2024. The elections are being closely watched as a test of the interim government’s commitment to inclusivity and democratic transition after more than five decades of Assad family rule.
For half a century, Syrians formally cast ballots in elections under the Assad dynasty, yet the Baath Party invariably dominated parliament, rendering the contests little more than political rituals. Analysts noted that the only genuinely competitive element during that era occurred inside the Baath Party itself, when members lobbied for spots on the official list. The forthcoming polls, however, will depart from that system but remain only partially democratic, with most parliamentary seats decided through indirect mechanisms and one-third filled directly by presidential appointment.
The People’s Assembly, Syria’s legislature, comprises 210 seats. Of these, two-thirds will be filled through electoral colleges in 60 districts, while the remaining one-third will be appointed directly by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. Each district’s number of seats is allocated according to population, and in principle, a total of 7,000 electoral college members should select 140 representatives.
However, elections in Sweida province — dominated by the Druze community — and in the northeast, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have been indefinitely postponed due to tensions between local administrations and Damascus. This leaves approximately 6,000 electoral college members in 50 districts voting for around 120 seats. Aleppo, the largest district, will see 700 electoral college members select 14 deputies, while Damascus follows with 500 members voting for 10 seats.
All candidates must emerge from within the electoral colleges themselves, and in the absence of legally recognized political parties — dissolved after Assad’s ouster due to their affiliations with the old regime — every candidate is running as an independent.
The only Kurdish-majority area participating in the elections is Afrin (Efrîn), located in northwestern Syria, or Western Kurdistan. On September 28, 2025, Afrin’s local administration announced its candidate list for the People’s Assembly. The list includes 25 candidates: 15 Kurds and 10 Arabs, placing Arab representation at 40 percent. This proportion has stirred controversy, as Arabs constituted only around 4 percent of Afrin’s population prior to the Syrian National Army (SNA)’s faction occupation in 2018.
Criticism also mounted over the limited participation of women, with female candidates accounting for just 12 percent of Afrin’s list. The electoral process in Syria will run from September 29 to October 3, followed by an election silence day on October 4, with final results scheduled for announcement on Oct. 6, 2025.
The interim government has explained that conducting a direct national vote is currently unfeasible. Years of civil war, mass displacement, and widespread loss of personal documents have made it impossible to compile a reliable voter registry. Millions of Syrians remain either internally displaced or scattered across the diaspora.
This parliament will serve a 30-month term, during which the authorities are tasked with establishing conditions for a genuine popular vote in the next cycle. While critics describe the arrangement as undemocratic, some analysts argue the reasoning is pragmatic.
Benjamin Feve, senior research analyst at the Syria-focused Karam Shaar Advisory, noted: “We don’t even know how many Syrians are in Syria today. It would be really difficult to draw electoral lists or arrange the logistics for Syrians in the diaspora to vote in their countries of residence.”
Haid Haid, a senior research fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative and Chatham House, expressed deeper concern about the opaque selection process for electors. “Especially when it comes to choosing the subcommittees and the electoral colleges, there is no oversight, and the whole process is sort of potentially vulnerable to manipulation,” he warned. Haid added that objections have arisen over the unexplained removal of names from initial lists published by election authorities.
Questions of inclusivity remain at the center of the upcoming polls. There are no official quotas for women, ethnic groups, or religious minorities within the parliament. While women were required to constitute 20 percent of the electoral college membership, this requirement has not translated into comparable representation among candidates or projected winners.
According to the head of the national elections committee, Mohammed Taha al-Ahmad, women represent 14 percent of the 1,578 candidates on the final lists. In certain districts, female participation reaches 30 to 40 percent, while in others, there are no women candidates at all.
The exclusion of Sweida and Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast has further fueled doubts about minority representation. This concern is particularly acute following sectarian violence in recent months, in which hundreds of Alawite and Druze civilians were killed, many at the hands of fighters linked to the former regime.
Feve highlighted that electoral boundaries were drawn in such a way as to create minority-majority districts, rather than diluting their influence. “What the government could have done if it wanted to limit the number of minorities was to merge these districts with majority Sunni Muslim districts. They could have drowned the minorities, which they did not do,” he observed.
Interim President al-Sharaa’s power to appoint one-third of the assembly is presented by officials as a mechanism to correct imbalances. Analysts suggest that al-Sharaa may use his appointments to boost representation of women and minorities if the electoral process fails to deliver inclusivity.
Still, Haid cautioned that leaving entire regions outside the electoral process poses long-term risks. “Regardless of how many people will be appointed from those areas, the dispute between the de facto authorities and Damascus over their participation in the political process will remain a major issue,” he said.
Sunday’s elections will be closely watched, both inside Syria and abroad, as the interim leadership seeks legitimacy while navigating the country’s fractured political and social landscape. Although lacking the features of a fully democratic vote, the process is expected to serve as a barometer of the interim authorities’ seriousness in promoting inclusivity and preparing Syria for a future popular vote.
The coming weeks, especially in contested areas like Afrin, will reveal whether this transitional parliament can lay the foundations for a more representative system — or whether it risks perpetuating the legacy of exclusion that marked the Assad era.
