Syrian religious minorities and women will be underrepresented in Syria's new parliament following an election that was tightly controlled by self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and in which the Syrian public was not allowed to vote.
Preliminary results of the election published on Monday show that of the 119 new lawmakers, only six are women, while just 10 come from Syria's Turkmen, Kurdish, Alawite, and Christian populations, Reuters reported. One election observer speaking with the news agency described the new parliament as "overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim and male."
"The observer also said the short appeal window severely restricted the ability to file objections and undermined the integrity of the process," Reuters added.
Unsuccessful candidates had until 5:00 pm local time to appeal the outcome. The 119 lawmakers were elected through a vote in which 6,000 members of regional electoral colleges chosen by Sharaa were allowed to participate.
Syria's minorities were further excluded following the decision by Syrian authorities not to hold elections in the Druze-controlled governorate of Suwayda and Kurdish-controlled governorates of Raqqa and Hasakah, citing “security concerns.”
As a result, the 21 parliamentary seats for those regions will remain indefinitely empty. Sharaa, the former Al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq commander, will also appoint the final 70 lawmakers to complete the 210-member legislative body, ensuring Syrians have no voice in the outcome.
Syrian authorities claimed they could not allow Syrian civilians to participate due to a lack of reliable population data and because many of them may not have IDs following the 14-year war.
One day before Sunday's vote, AP reported many Syrians were unaware that the first parliamentary elections since the fall of the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad were about to take place, in part because the public was not allowed to participate.
“There were no candidate posters on the main streets and squares, no rallies, or public debates. In the days leading up to the polling, some residents of the Syrian capital had no idea a vote was hours away,” AP stated.
In 2011, the US, Israel, and allied states launched a covert war to topple Assad's government. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed as the war dragged on for 14 years.
The US and western powers opposed Assad, calling him authoritarian, only to install Sharaa, a former UN-designated terrorist, in power in December 2024. Since then, Sharaa has built a shadow fundamentalist religious state ruled by sheikhs from Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate he headed.
Christian-majority areas now being represented by Sunni Salafists and fanatics...
In March, Sharaa's security forces and affiliated extremist armed groups massacred at least 1,500 Alawite civilians, including elderly men, women, and children, across dozens of locations on the Syrian coast.
Syrian forces carried out similar massacres against members of Syria's Druze religious minority just four months later in the southern Suwayda Governorate. The victims included at least 167 civilians, among them 21 children and 57 women, SOHR reported.
In both the coast and Suwayda, Syrian security forces executed unarmed civilians in their homes and in the streets based on their religious identity.
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