Syria yesterday published preliminary results of its indirect vote for the first parliament since Bashar Al Assad’s historic toppling last year, with election officials acknowledging a low success rate for women and religious minorities.
Sunday’s vote saw around 6,000 members of regional electoral colleges choose candidates from pre-approved lists, part of a process to produce nearly two-thirds of the new 210-seat body.
President Ahmed Al Sharaa will later select the remaining third.
In preliminary results issued yesterday, Syria’s electoral committee said that 119 legislators had been selected but did not include the number of votes each received.
Six new legislators are women, according to a Reuters count verified by election observers.
The observers said 10 seats in total went to religious and ethnic minorities, including Kurds, Christians and two Alawites, the sect to which Assad belongs.
“Among the most significant shortcomings of the electoral process were the unsatisfactory results for Syrian women’s representation, and the fact that Christian representation was limited to two seats, a weak representation relative to the number of Christians in Syria,” a spokesperson for Syria’s higher electoral committee said.
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