President Bashar al-Assad set July 15 as election day for the 250 seats of the Syrian People’s Assembly to be held in the areas controlled by his government. As the electoral process unfolds, a series of articles will deconstruct the key elements of Syrian elections and their role in legitimizing Baath Party rule. It will also conduct 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.

This article examines the system of representation, which determines how many candidates will be elected for a four-year term from each of the electoral districts and how the voters will vote for candidates in these districts. Variations of these elements can produce vastly different results. In Syria, the system guarantees three effects: overrepresentation of regime strongholds in parliament, manipulation of candidates through a quota system that reserves seats for workers and farmers, and prevention of effective multi-party competition.

There are no criteria for the number of members of parliament allocated from each governorate, with allocation decided purely at the president’s discretion. The allocation remains the same as it was in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections, failing to consider any demographic changes seen in Syria since 2011. Based on the most recent official data, Syria’s population is 30 million (compared to a United Nations estimate of 23 million), and there has been no census since 2004.

Even a cursory look reveals how unfair the allocation of seats to constituencies is, and that it leads to significantly disproportional values of the vote. The allocation directly discriminates against the voters of the Raqqa, Al-Hasakah, Daraa, Aleppo, and Damascus City governorates—historically associated with opposition—while it favors voters in Quneitra, Latakia, Tartus, and Damascus governorates. The chart shows clearly the “value of the vote.” As an example, comparison of the official population data reveals that Damascus City governorate is represented in the assembly double than Rural Damascus and three times more than al-Hassakah. In another example, only 85,000 residents are needed for one member representing Lataka, while it takes 150,000 residents of Dara for a seat in the assembly.  This is contrary to the international electoral standard of equality of the vote.

While districting defines the inequality of the vote, the quota for farmers and workers defines inequality between the candidates. Of the 250 seats in parliament, the presidential decree assigned 127 to farmers or workers and 123 to “other sectors of society,” but the law does not elaborate on what “other sectors” means.

Nominally, the quota for farmers and workers introduced in 1973 was supposed to reflect socialist values and secure representation for working-class Syrians. In practice, the lack of criteria for candidacy in this category allows for manipulation, and many businessmen opted to run for these seats. In the 2020 elections, only 27.5 percent of the candidates (456 of the total 1,658) registered to run as farmers or workers, making those seats far less competitive. Also, while the system has a quota for farmers and workers, it does not include a quota for women. While far from the only method for protecting the representation of women, such a quota could counter the extraordinary and historically low representation of women; in the 2020 elections, only twenty-eight women were elected (11 percent of members).

But of all the stifling elements of the system, the ballot structure is the most damaging. On its face, the system appears simple: voters vote for as many candidates as there are seats in the district. Candidates run as individuals and, after the votes are tallied, are ranked simply by the number of votes. Those with the highest rankings win the seats. Yet this simplicity masks the extraordinary effect of this system, which is somewhat deceptively called the “block vote” system. In theory, it allows voters to vote for individual candidates, but in practice voters almost exclusively give all the votes to a block of candidates, often using a ballot with already selected candidates rather than voting on a blank “write-in” ballot.

Even when a block gains only a slight advantage, this translates into winning all the seats in the district. Those familiar with the Palestinian elections will remember that this system produced an overwhelming parliamentary majority for Hamas in 2005. In Lebanon, it guaranteed the pro-Syrian composition of the parliament in the post-civil war elections from 1992 to 2005. The Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, and Jordan abandoned this system, so Syria remains the only country in the world using it for the national elections. This is not by coincidence—the system is designed to disincentivize competition between political parties. The results of the 2020 elections demonstrate its effect, as the candidates nominated by the Baath-dominated National Unity list won all the seats for which they competed, while those who were not on the list had no chance to be elected. This will remain the case as long as there is no well-organized, disciplined, and unified opposition with a single list of candidates, as the effect of vote splitting between the individual candidates is tremendously damaging to all that campaign as individuals.  

It is virtually impossible to estimate outcomes if Syrian elections were held under a different electoral system. Because each voter votes for multiple candidates, their votes cannot simply be re-calculated to present how much each party would receive under a putative proportional representation system. Besides vote tallying, the block vote system has far-reaching implications for political competition as well. Because it assumes competition between individual candidates, undermining options for political organizing and competition between political parties, it all but ensures fragmentation of the opposition. The framework of the block vote is so advantageous to the Baath Party that, even if the opposition were welcome to compete in elections with guarantees that their candidates would not be disqualified or harassed, in practice, opposition parties would not stand a chance to win a significant number of seats.

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

Tue, Jun 18, 2024

From rebel factions to an army: Efforts to tame the Syrian National Army

MENASource By Levent Kemal

The ultimate goal of reforming the SNA is to create space for a self-sufficient political actor that organizes public policies.

Conflict Europe & Eurasia

Tue, Jun 4, 2024

Economic recovery in opposition-held Syria is challenging but still possible

MENASource By Sinan Hatahet

The United States and its allies can foster an early recovery in opposition-held areas without undermining the UN-led political resolution efforts.

Conflict Middle East

Thu, Apr 25, 2024

The Syrian parliamentary elections are coming up. Should anyone care?

MENASource By Vladimir Pran and Maroun Sfeir

The polls will be held again against a backdrop of massive displacement, unresolved conflict, partial occupation, and an intransigent regime.

Conflict Elections

Image: People ride on motorbikes near Turkish flags and Syrian opposition flags in the rebel-held city of Azaz, Syria May 15, 2023. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi