Syria acknowledges ‘gaps’ in number of seats won by women in elections

The committee that organized Syria’s first parliamentary elections since the fall of Bashar al-Assad has acknowledged “significant shortcomings”, after results showed only 13% of contested seats were won by female and minority candidates.

Observers said six women and 10 members of religious and ethnic minorities were among the 119 people elected to the People’s Assembly on Sunday.

There was no direct popular vote. Instead, electoral colleges select representatives for two-thirds of the 210 seats. Acting President Ahmed Al-Sharaa appoints the rest.

An election committee spokesperson said the president’s choices could “compensate” for underrepresented parts of society.

Twenty-one seats were unfilled because polls were postponed for security reasons in two Kurdish-controlled provinces in the north, and a third in the south which saw deadly fighting between government forces and Druze militias.

Sharaa declared the elections a “historic moment” during a visit to a polling station and said Parliament would play an “important oversight role” during its 30-month term.

He promised a democratic and inclusive political transition after his Sunni Islamist group led the rebel Lightning Offensive that toppled the Assad regime last December, ending a 13-year civil war that killed more than 600,000 people and displaced another 12 million.

However, the country has been rocked by several waves of deadly sectarian violence since then, fueling fear and distrust among minorities.

Sunday’s polls were overseen by the top committee for elections to the Syrian People’s Assembly, 11 members of which were chosen by the president in June.

They in turn appointed subcommittees that were tasked with selecting up to 7,000 members from 140 constituencies spanning 60 districts.

The candidates representing the 50 districts where voting took place all had to be members of the electoral college. Supporters of “former regime or terrorist organizations” were banned from membership, as were advocates of “secession, division, or seeking foreign intervention.”

Ultimately, women made up 14 percent of the 1,500 applicants, according to the top committee.

However, there were no quotas for female legislators, nor for those from the country’s many ethnic and religious minorities.

After releasing the results of the preliminary elections on Monday, the spokesperson for the higher electoral committee, Nawar Najmeh, was invited by journalists to comment on the representation of women and Christians.

“Among the most significant shortcomings of the electoral process were the unsatisfactory results of the representation of Syrian women, and the fact that Christian representation was limited to two seats, a low representation relative to the number of Christians in Syria,” he told a press conference.

Election observers told the Reuters news agency that two members of Assad’s Alawite sect and several ethnic Kurds also won seats.

The United States estimates that 10% of Syria’s population of 24 million is Christian. Sunni Muslims make up 74%, other Muslim sects 13% and Druze 3%.

Najmeh suggested that “the president’s third (seats) could compensate” for some underrepresented parts of society.

He also insisted that authorities were “serious about having additional ballots” in the northern provinces of Raqqa and Hassakeh, which are mainly controlled by a Kurdish-led militia alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

However, he said the polls there would be linked to progress between the government and the SDF on implementing a March agreement to integrate all Kurdish-led military and civilian institutions in the state.

The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), political umbrella of the SDF-affiliated Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES), said the elections “do not represent the will of the Syrian people and do not represent all regions and communities in the country.”

On Tuesday, Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra said he had agreed to a complete ceasefire with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi following recent clashes in two predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods in northern Aleppo city.

The Aanes accused the army of attacking residents of Ashrafie and Sheikh Maksoud on Monday, while the Interior Ministry said the clashes broke out after army checkpoints were bombed by the SDF.

The government also has little swing in the southern province of Suweida, where tensions with the predominantly Druze population have remained high since sectarian violence three months ago.

Violence erupted when Druze militias clashed with Sunni Bedouin tribes, prompting the government to send its forces to intervene. According to monitoring groups.

A Druze cleric in Suweida, Fadi Badria, told the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the elections only represented the authority of what he called the “terrorist” interim government and that they would “not be recognized by the province”.