Syria Will Hold Its First Parliamentary Elections After Assad
Syria will hold its first parliamentary elections on this Sunday, following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad late last year. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa will directly appoint one-third of the 210 seats, while the rest will be selected through electoral colleges rather than a nationwide popular vote.
Syria is preparing for its first parliamentary elections since the collapse of the Assad dynasty, which ruled for over five decades. The October vote comes nearly a year after Assad’s ouster in December 2024 by a coalition of rebel forces led in part by al-Sharaa, a former commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
According to the state-run SANA agency, the election will mark a step toward building new state institutions and legitimizing the interim government. The parliament will be tasked with overhauling decades of state-controlled economic policies, ratifying foreign policy treaties, and “laying the groundwork for a broader democratic process”.
The People’s Assembly will consist of 210 seats: 140 chosen through electoral colleges across 60 districts and 70 directly appointed by al-Sharaa. Authorities argue that a popular vote is impossible at this stage due to massive displacement—millions of Syrians are refugees or internally displaced and many lack identity documents.
But the process has sparked debate. The postponement of elections in Sweida province, home to Syria’s Druze minority, and in Kurdish-held Hasakah and Raqqa, has left entire communities without representation. Critics say the lack of inclusivity undermines the credibility of the elections.
Benjamin Feve, a senior analyst with Karam Shaar Advisory, said: “We don’t even know how many Syrians are in Syria today. It would be really difficult to draw electoral lists or arrange logistics for the diaspora vote.”
Although women were required to make up 20 percent of electoral college members, only 14 percent of final candidates are female, according to election committee data. No quota system has been established for minorities such as Alawites, Kurds, or Druze. The government says presidential appointments could be used to boost inclusivity, but analysts warn this is insufficient to address structural exclusion.
Haid Haid of the Arab Reform Initiative noted: “Even if al-Sharaa appoints legislators from these areas, the dispute between local authorities and Damascus over political participation will remain a major issue.”
Syria’s October 2025 parliamentary elections come after the collapse of the Assad dynasty, which ruled for nearly six decades. Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia in December 2024 after years of civil war, economic collapse, and military setbacks. A transitional administration led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former rebel commander, was formed in early 2025, issuing a constitutional declaration that pledged reforms but concentrated power in the presidency .
The country remains fractured, with Kurdish forces controlling the northeast, Druze militias entrenched in Sweida, and millions of Syrians displaced. Under Assad, elections were tightly controlled by the Baath Party; critics now warn that the new system—where al-Sharaa appoints a third of seats and voting excludes key regions—risks repeating patterns of exclusion even as it offers the first chance to rebuild political institutions after the war.
