Syria's ruling Baath party won an expected majority of seats in parliamentary elections produced in the government-controlled areas, and according to the official results, voter turnout was slightly below 40 percent, reported France Presse, quoted by BTA.
These are the fourth parliamentary elections since the start of the civil war in 2011, which has killed more than half a million people, divided the country and forced millions to flee their homes.
The elections were held without real opposition. The opposition in exile criticized them as illegitimate because they did not involve Syrians living outside government-controlled areas.
The head of the Central Election Commission, Jihad Murad, read out the names of the winners at a press conference in Damascus today, without specifying which party won the vote.
A comparison of the names of the winners and the lists of candidates, however, shows that BAAS and its allies won 185 of the 250 seats in the People's Council. The rest of the seats were won by candidates who ran as “independents”, but they are mostly from the lists of the BAAS.
President Bashar al-Assad's Baath Party, which has been in power for more than two decades, came to power in 1963, and its allies are running almost unopposed.
According to Murad, voter turnout was 38.16 percent compared to 33.17 percent in the 2020 parliamentary elections.