On December 8, 2024 he has passed to the history books: that day, the president of Syria,, ending a saga of power initiated by his father, Hafed, long of 54 years. Two dictators who kept the country under an iron fist, with wings and freedoms cut based on. The father died in fullness. The son saw how his people rose in the heat of the Arab springs, claiming democracy, and how everything ended at civil war, 13 years of bombings, chemical weapons and destruction. Now, after that bitter stage, the country celebrates this Sunday, October 5, its first parliamentary elections. Indirect, incomplete, precarious, but at last elections.
The rebel groups opposed to Assad, very different in origin, motivations and faith, joined precariously to move towards Damascus and overthrow it. . Since then, in these nine months, the country has walked along the path of hope and fear, of the desire for change and the uncertainty for whom the reins have now taken, which system will be imposed in the country, how open and flexible and Democrat will be the new time.
(known as Abu Mohammed al Jawlani) He proclaimed himself president, for being the leader of the most powerful militia group of those who managed to throw the tyrant, called Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS, Organization for the Liberation of Levante). Old jihadist, has hung the uniform, has promised unity and democracy and has gotten into his pocket to most of the international community, starting with the West, which is raising the times of Assad and receives it in the UN Assembly as one more, although he is not yet a legitimately chosen president by its citizens.
For now, the Sharaa and his team – something more plural than, given the criticisms of isolation to certain minorities – have taken the step of calling elections. They are not the generals, the presidential ones, because those, assume, may not take place for four or five years, when things are more stable in the country. They are parliamentary, the beginning of the transition, the first flying goal. An appointment with the polls with lagoons that are those that throw shadows on the final result. Because no, it is not going to vote directly, as we usually in Europe, but indirect. That means that the Syrians will not be vote, those who choose their representatives, but will do so through intermediate representatives. They will choose electoral advice and those will be, in the end, those who have the final word about delegates and parliamentarians.
There are two reasons that the temporary government argues for this decision: the first is that there is no reliable electoral census to resort to dispose of each person has their vote, after more than a decade of war in which everything jumped through the air, literally. There are no serious records to trust. The second is that Syria is a country with six million external and more than seven inmates, one of the most painful consequences of the contest. It is not known who is and where it is. Thus it is not possible to guarantee a right, although there are Syrians who are beginning to return to their homes, before Assad’s march.
An aerial view of the residential area of Ghouta, 12 years after the chemical massacre of Assad, last August.
The immediate consequences of war are also noted in the impossibility of celebrating elections throughout the country, because not all Syria is safe. Some border regions without stabilizing, plus the Kurdish of the Northeast or that of Al Sueida (South), with a high presence of Druss, are out of the call because they are insecure, since since the regime fell, the regime has been produced with dozens of fatalities. Sewing the nation is one of the most complex and immediate challenges of the new government.
Another quality of this election is the type of candidates. On the one hand, there is the relative normality that they present and condition and religion and past, with the abnormality that they do it independently, rather than enrolled in formations. They flee from them because they are not pointed out, but also because there are no firm structures yet for a standardized party dynamic.
And another one, the most disturbing perhaps, is that through the indirect system that we have explained, only 140 of the country’s 210 parliamentarians are chosen. And the others? It will be the president who names directly to the remaining 70, one third. The fear of Thoughtless It is clear, although from the Executive it is defended that there are quotas for women or ethnic and religious minorities and that there will be balance and arguments after the elections.
Under these conditions, was it appropriate to convene elections? The Sharaa insists that yes, because it means advancing in the transition from the country, giving citizens “guarantees” of respect for their voice and “commitment” to reforms to come, starting with the application of a new one, approved in March. It is reduced, understands, the institutional vacuum of now, but is done, denounce the critics, with little transparency and much hand of the government in the legislative.
Members of the Syrian Security Forces, together with the body of one of the dead in the operation on Latakia, on March 9, 2025.
An uncertain future
It is the ambivalence of this 5-0, expected and but not as exciting as desired, a step in the right direction but surrounded by personalist ghosts that Syria has a full past. On the one hand, the symbolism of the appointment is undeniable, after having gone to the polls since 1971 knowing that there was only roller of the Baaz party of the Assad. On the other, it has to “wait and trust”, as the Count of Montecristo said, because the months to come are of faith, of great faith.
The National Assembly that emerges this Sunday can serve as an instrument to introduce the great reforms that the country needs, one day the richest of the Arabs and today sunk between Casctes. It is positive that groups of different trends feel together and discuss. It is risky that, if there is no freedom of total choice, those who begin to play power become strong between them and leave space for anything else.
All eyes perch, for now, in the president, who with Sagacity has managed to erase his image of armed Islamist to give way to that of a leader with whom you can speak, with which business can be done, even, as the president of the USA, Donald Trump, pointed out when he gave him the final on his first trip as returned to the White House, in Saudi Arabia.
Last week, in the first speech in decades of a Syrian president at the UN General Assembly, Sharaa asked, above all, “National Unit.” “I saw a sincere love and living hope for Syria to prosper, grow and recover your health,” he said, referring to the reception of the international community. In the streets of Damascus, thousands of people went out to listen to their speech on large screens, a fairly unusual fact before an unusual speech, but also with certain airs of cult of the leader.
The president explained that the initial stabilization of the country, the constitution of new state institutions, the preparation of new electoral processes and the invitation to foreign investment to boost the economy are their challenges, and stressed the urgency of eliminating internationals, qualifying them as a ballast for economic recovery and the daily life of Syrians.
That call is from outside doors. From doors to the inside he has his own great challenge, as he said: that of the unit. Syria has lived two great outbreaks of violence since he came to power. The first was in March, for collisions of government forces, on the coast of Latakia. The dead exceeded 1,300. The second, most recent, has taken place in the area of Al Sueida, for a local Bedouin and Druss dispute, which also left 1,400 dead. Between the two crises, the displaced people approached 250,000, realizing the fear of new clashes after 13 years of contest. There is uncertainty about whether the country will end up being a sum of Taifas kingdoms, each with their command and with their hatred.
Syria has an added enemy: Israel, the neighbor with whom he remains technically at war but with whom he has begun to have underground contacts to calm things. Tel Aviv, under the command of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has seen an opportunity in Assad’s march and has hospitalized his troops on Syrian soil, even more, because he was already in the highs of the Golán, soil occupied and recognized as such by the UN. Last July, Israel decided to “protect” the Drusos – a community that also resides in the north of their territory – and launched that they arrived at Damascus, the capital.
At the moment, it is the Syrians, with the means that allow them, who will try to show their voice this Sunday. There are other actors, the moment is another. It is another historic day.
