Syria completed the electoral process for its upcoming parliament on Sunday after voting concluded in the northeastern constituencies of Hasakah , Qamishli and Ain al-Arab (Kobane) , with authorities saying the country’s first legislative session could convene after Eid al-Adha .
The vote marked the final stage in selecting representatives for the new People’s Assembly, with the exception of Suweida province, which remains outside Damascus’s control.
Syria’s Higher Committee for People’s Assembly Elections announced the winners of nine parliamentary seats allocated to the northeastern constituencies, following the closure of polling stations and the start of vote counting.
Committee spokesperson Nawar Najma told Syrian state news agency SANA that Afrhad Anwar Shaheen and Shawakh Ibrahim al-Assaf won the two seats allocated to Ain al-Arab in Aleppo province.
In the Qamishli district in Hasakah province, Kim Hussein Ibrahim, Radwan Othman Sido, Abdul Halim Khadr al-Ali and Mahmoud Madi al-Ali were declared winners.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Mustafa al-Ali, Omar Issa Hais and Fasla Youssef won the seats allocated to the Hasakah district.
Najma said the completion of voting in Hasakah, Qamishli, Malikiya and Ain al-Arab paves the way for the first legislative session of the People’s Assembly once President Ahmad al-Sharaa announces the remaining appointed members.
Under Syria’s temporary constitutional declaration, the president appoints one-third of parliament — 70 members — in order to ensure “fair representation and competence”.
The remaining two-thirds have now been selected through indirect elections held by electoral bodies across Syria’s provinces.
Najma said he expected parliament’s first session to convene after the Eid al-Adha holiday once legal and administrative procedures were completed.
“The current indicators are positive and proceeding normally,” he said, while stressing that the proposed timeline remained an estimate rather than a final schedule.
Anas al-Abdah, a member of the Higher Elections Committee, described the elections as “the fruit of dialogue and understanding between different parties”, calling them “a pivotal step in the path of national integration”.
Al-Abdah said the elections gave residents of Hasakah province “from all its components” the opportunity to participate in national decision-making and would help consolidate “the principles of representation and national diversity within the framework of the new Syrian state”.
The elections in northeastern Syria are particularly significant because the region was long governed by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) before being reintegrated under Damascus’s authority earlier this year.
However, prominent Syrian Kurdish parties and forces rejected the outcome of the election.
At a press conference in the northeastern city of Qamishli, representatives of 21 Kurdish parties and political movements including the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Syria's most powerful Kurdish party, decried a "top-down appointment" process.
"What took place revealed once again an approach of exclusion and marginalisation through the selective appointment of a number of figures," they said.
"In the face of the results and the appointment mechanism which took place, we affirm that the (selected) individuals represent themselves alone."
Despite this, the elections committee said turnout rates reached 75% in Qamishli district, 92% in Hasakah district and 95% in Ain al-Arab.
Suweida province, however, remains outside the process amid ongoing tensions between Damascus and local authorities in the Druze-majority province.
Political activist Adham Masoud al-Qaq told The New Arab that Damascus and local forces in Suweida should reach an agreement to allow elections to take place and "end the abnormal situation there".
"Suweida must be part of one unified Syria," he said.
According to the constitutional declaration governing Syria’s transitional phase, the new People’s Assembly will hold legislative authority until a permanent constitution is adopted and new elections are held under it.
The parliament’s term will last 30 months and may be renewed.