Syrian elections ended. What have we learned from the results?

With the presidential decree certifying the winners of the July 15 elections and calling for the Syrian People’s Assembly to convene on August 21, the 2024 election cycle has officially concluded. After President Bashar al-Assad called elections for the 250 seats of the Syrian People’s Assembly held in the areas controlled by his government, the key stages of the process were unpacked. This series also conducted a deep dive into the challenges of moving ahead with electoral reform in the United Nations (UN)-facilitated political process. The first article of the series discussed the outline of the election process and its significance, while the second article examined the system of representation, which determines the voting method and how many candidates will be elected from each of the districts. The third article presented the structure of the Syrian electorate, and the fourth article unpacked the role of various institutions in administering elections and the candidates. This concluding article makes sense of the election results.

Syrians voted in 8,151 polling stations that opened across the country, with the exception of areas not controlled by the Assad regime. To cater to residents displaced from opposition-held areas, the government established special polling stations scattered throughout the country. For example, stations were set up for Raqqa residents in the Hama, Damascus, Hasakah, Homs, Latakia, and Tartous governorates. For Quneitra residents, more than 111 out of 175 stations were located outside the governorate.

In northeastern Syria, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) prevented elections by establishing a security cordon around the Qamishli “government quarter,” in which the Assad regime provides administrative services to the residents of the area. SDF-affiliated social media and news outlets broadcasted warnings that the election sites might be subject to unspecified terrorist attacks. In Idlib and northern Aleppo, areas controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA), there were no electoral activities.

Of all the areas under governmental control, the most disruptions were reported in the southern areas of Sweida. Before the polls, and continuing into Election Day, demonstrators protesting against the elections entered several polling centers, took away ballot boxes, and set election materials on fire. The anti-election protests were a continuation of the anti-regime protests that have been regularly occurring for the past year. On Election Day, demonstrators in Sweida’s al-Karama Square came under fire by security forces, and a civilian was injured. It’s worth noting that protests were not limited to Sweida—violence and demonstrations were reported across the governorate, as well as in the towns of Qarya and Mazraa and the villages of Melh, Slim, and Koraya. In Daraa governorate, protests and threats of violence forced the government to relocate twenty-five polling stations. For example, stations in the town of Mahja were moved to the city of Izraa, stations from al-Karak were moved to al-Musayfrah, and those in the city of Jasem were relocated to a safer part of the city.

Where the polls were conducted without disruption, the process unfolded identically to the 2020 election. Because the election authorities neither register voters nor compile the voters list in advance of elections, the first step at the polling station was to register a voter using the blank forms used to write in voters. This way, the voters list was compiled on Election Day rather than being available to the committees before the elections.

Voters would then be handed a ballot and needed to choose to either use ballots pre-filled with the Baath Party-sponsored candidates on the National Unity (NU) list or, if they dared, a blank ballot. Those who opted for a blank ballot had to write in the names of the candidates by hand, ranging from five names in al-Quentra to thirty-two names in rural Aleppo, which is a burdensome process. In some areas, the non-NU candidates would also distribute pre-printed ballots, such as the “Sham” list in Damascus, which features the incumbent Mohamed Hamsho (sanctioned by the European Union and the United States). The practice is fully permitted by law.

To ensure high turnout, public institutions, companies, committees, factories, banks, and unions were instructed by the government not to give employees a day off, which prevented them from ignoring the polls, and to compel them to vote en masse, likely under supervision. Many polling stations were set up in or near their workplaces—like factories and universities—to boost turnout. However, in contrast with the previous elections, there was no information on turnout either during the day or immediately after the close of the polls. According to our research, the Supreme Judicial Election Committee (SJEC), governors, and heads of polling committees used vague language to describe the turnout in the media, with statements like “turnout was good,” “nice,” “high,” “not bad,” and “it got better in the afternoon” being used throughout the day. During a live interview on state television with the polling station committee in rural Damascus, the reporter abruptly changed the subject and asked the polling station president not to share any information about the number of voters or the station’s results.

There is little to be said about the credibility of the polling process itself. As described in a previous article on electoral administration, the process did not meet fundamental standards for impartial management of elections nor the standards of transparency. There were no independent national or international observers, and there were no systematic, evidence-based reports of the polling process. For what it is worth, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of mass proxy voting, underage voting, voting without secrecy, and voting in military barracks without a chance for supervision.

The same lack of transparency shrouds the process for resolving election disputes. The president of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Jihad Lahham, announced on July 28 that all forty-seven appeals were rejected for “not meeting the conditions stipulated in the laws” and “not supported by any document or evidence.” Nothing is known about the nature of the appeals or those filing them.

The Syrian opposition was campaigning against the legitimacy of the elections. These efforts were led by the Syrian Negotiation Committee, several Syrian nongovernmental organizations, and the media. The key slogan of the campaign was “No to Assad and his elections” alongside “Resolution 2254,” which also appeared as hashtags on X (formerly Twitter). The campaign messages were of a general anti-elections character, pointing out that they were against the framework set by the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 2254. The campaign was launched late and was effectively active only on Election Day. It does not appear to have gained any significant traction.

The Baath Party endorsed NU lists that included 185 candidates across the country. As expected, the electoral system ensured that all of them were elected, making the partisan composition of the assembly identical to the previous one: 67 percent for the Baathists (a total of 74 percent for all the NU candidates) and 26 percent for those elected to seats not contested by the NU. The number of seats not contested by the NU candidates, a maximum of sixty-five, is not random; it is by design. It avoids the perception of single-party rule and allows for a semblance of diversity, but protects the regime by securing a two-thirds majority needed to fend off legislative challenges, enact constitutional amendments, or accuse the president of treason. This golden ratio has been the formula in place since the 2016 legislative elections held in the aftermath of the 2012 constitutional reforms.

Are there any other conclusions besides the predictable 100 percent victory for all of the NU candidates? Detailed analysis is difficult because of the lack of transparency; there is simply not enough data published for a granular view of the results. If elections were ever to be held under the framework of the UNSC Resolution 2254 and within international standards, the authorities would be obliged to publish the complete election results, including turnout with gender breakdown, numbers of invalid ballots, registered voters, and votes for all the candidates. Currently, the results published by the SJEC present only the votes of the winning candidates, not all the candidates. This makes election analysis impossible, as by how much the election losers lost will never be known.

Because the voting data are missing, and because the competition was, in practice, resolved before Election Day through internal elections and the primaries, the analysis is reduced to levels of participation. The SJEC only announced an overall number of voters in elections: 7,325,844 out of 19,200,325 claimed by the government to be eligible, which results in a turnout of 38.16 percent, about a 5 percent increase since the 2020 elections. This overall number says nothing about regional differences.

Voting patterns are even harder to analyze because of elections used a block vote system with multiple candidates. The workaround is to consider the top candidate on the list as representative of the support received by the list. Employing this method reveals a pattern of some voting shifts between the governorates and between the 2020 and 2024 elections. Countrywide, the NU lists received 5 percent fewer votes than in 2024. Some drops in the votes were dramatic, such as in Damascus, where NU lost 49 percent of the votes, followed by Hasaka with 43 percent. On the other hand, votes for NU in rural Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, and Hama dramatically increased (42 percent, 51 percent, and 71 percent, respectively.)

It will take some time to understand the cause of these changes. They could be simply the result of the redeployment of the military and the return of internally displaced persons, especially to Damascus. The only solid conclusion at this point is that the actual increase in the total number of those who voted by 1.1 million has not resulted in increased support for the NU lists, as they lost two hundred thousand votes compared to the 2020 elections. And, when compared with the 2016 elections, the increase in 2.2 million voters led to a decrease in support for the NU by 1.2 million votes.

Shifts in support for the NU lists do not seem to be related to whether the candidates on the lists were incumbents. As in the previous elections, the rates of turnover were high. Out of the 250 elected to the new parliament, ninety-three are incumbents, which is only 37.2 percent of the total—and almost exactly the same as in the 2020 elections, when 37.6 percent of incumbents were re-elected.

However, turnover is not uniform across the country. The variations between the regions are significant. In Idlib, Tartous, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and Damascus, more than 80 percent of representatives were replaced. On the other side of the spectrum is Sweida with only 33 percent, followed by Daraa at 40 percent, and Hassaka at 42 percent.

Besides analysis of the turnout and the turnover in the parliament, what are the election results saying about the structure and political dynamics of the newly elected assembly? On an individual level, it might be of interest that six of the eight members serving in the governmental delegation to the UN-sponsored Constitutional Committee were not re-elected, including Ahmed Kuzbari, the co-chair. In Damascus, the “Sham” list led by Hamsho, a sanctioned businessman closely affiliated with Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother, won twelve seats that were not contested by the National Unity list. One of the new independent members of parliament from Aleppo, Mohammed al-Ruslan, is a former leader of a militia faction reportedly affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Madoul al-Aziz, a former leader of a militia affiliated to al-Nusra, was re-elected as an independent candidate for Deir ez-Zor.

But, as explained in the previous article on candidates, if there was any political competition, it played out in advance to general elections, in the intra-Baath Party elections and primaries. The conclusion from observing those processes is that the new parliament might be rejuvenated with significant turnover, but will likely remain in the service of the top Baath leadership.

Vladimir Pran advises electoral authorities, governments, and political leaders on transitional, electoral, and political processes.

Maroun Sfeir advises international and local civil society organizations, political groups, and electoral authorities on electoral and political processes.

Further reading

Thu, Jul 25, 2024

Syrian elections are decided before election day

MENASource By Vladimir Pran and Maroun Sfeir

While the polls were held on July 15, the elections were effectively over at the end of the primaries.

Corruption Elections

Tue, Aug 6, 2024

Can northeast Syria delink from the PKK?

MENASource By JP Reppeto

The United States needs effective allies in the northeast to stabilize the area and block an ISIS resurgence, while Turkey must prevent the entrenchment of a PKK-led statelet on its border.

Conflict Europe & Eurasia

Mon, Jun 24, 2024

The Syrian electoral system guarantees inequality

MENASource By Vladimir Pran and Maroun Sfeir

The framework of the block vote is so advantageous to the Baath Party that opposition parties would not stand a chance to win a significant number of seats.

Democratic Transitions Elections

Image: Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad casts his vote during parliamentary elections, in Damascus, Syria July 15, 2024. SANA/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.