Battered Syria prepares for the elections

While the ceasefire appears to be holding despite clear violations by opposition militia, the focus is now shifting to the Parliamentary elections that are scheduled for early May. On the roads of Damascus and other Syrian cities one can see a plethora of candidates peeping out of cutouts, hoardings, banners and what not. Although canvassing and other political activities are yet to pick up, people appear to be enthusiastic about the elections.

 

According to the Syrian constitution, elections used to take place every 4 years. However, in the past, it has remained a one-party affair for all practical purposes. All the existing nine political parties, including the Syrian Baath Party, were in a coalition and held 170 seats out of 250 in the outgoing Syrian National Assembly.

 

However, following the constitutional referendum and the implementation of electoral reforms, as many as nine new political parties of all possible stripes have come into fray. In total, over 2000 candidates form these 18 parties (the nine pro-Assad parties are expected to form a pre-poll alliance and declare joint candidates) are running for this election.

 

Talking to TSI, Mahmoud Al Abrash, President of The Syrian Peoples’ Assembly said, “We are expecting a heavy turn-out as we can sense great enthusiasm among the voters. Rhetoric is yet to start as the ruling Baath Party is yet to declare its candidates. It will be announced in a couple of days and they you can expect the fever to raise.”

 

Meanwhile, two of the Arab observer missions have refused to monitor the poll and Syria is expecting monitors from other countries including India to help them in conducting free and fair polls.

 

As far as the opposition parties are concerned, the Communists appear to be the strongest one in contention. However, the party lately got split and it is difficult to analyse which faction will emerge out as the strongest. 

 

Before the split, The Syrian Communist Party had as many as 50,000 card holding members. However, following the split, the bigger faction now boasts off merely 30,000 permanent members. To put it in perspective, the ruling Syrian Baath Party has close to 3.5 million members on its roll.

 

Under the circumstances, it appears that Baath Party and its coalition might win the election easily. However, this election is not about win or loss as the opposition parties are nascent and don’t have logistics in place to put a formidable challenge with the exception of may be Communist Party. 

 

But a free and fair electoral process will go a long way to ensure strengthening of opposition as well as other democratic institutions.