Elections in Syria
One of the solution approaches or another missed opportunity?
Elections in various countries around the world receive great attention from their citizens in particular, and neighboring countries and those with interests in general, as they shape the policies that these countries will pursue externally, and provide solutions within their election campaigns to what these countries face internally.
What applies to those elections does not apply to the elections in Syria. Despite the Syrians’ need and search for outlets to get out of their multiple crises and overcome the dangers surrounding the Syrian geography (multiple areas of control, the return of refugees and the pressures on them, the concerns of livelihood, the economy and development; the new social contract and the political path, the constitutional committee), we do not find popular interest and interaction with the elections.
To discuss and read the Syrians’ interaction with the elections, whether the recent People’s Assembly elections or the municipal elections announced by the Autonomous Administration in northeastern Syria and postponed, the National Building Movement held the 79th session of the “Syrian Wednesday” program at its headquarters in Damascus under the title: “Elections in Syria, one of the entrances to the solution or another lost opportunity?”, with the participation of a number of activists, media professionals and candidates for the People’s Assembly, physically and via video technology.
The discussion included the participation rate in the People's Assembly elections, which reached 38.16%, including the low participation rate of youth and women and the impact of this indicator on their participation in public life, in addition to the reasons for some people in Sweida refusing to participate in these elections and their attempts to prevent them from being held in their areas, and the presence of more than ten million Syrians outside the country.
The impact of the elections on the future of Syria and its impact on the hot issues today was also discussed, as well as how they are reflected in the approaches to recovery, and whether the state of representation expressed today in any electoral process can be one of the possibilities for moving the stagnation of the Syrian reality. The role of civil society in building on these experiences and trying to benefit from them and interact with them or reading their results as indicators for analyzing the Syrian political, social and economic context was also discussed.
The discussion was preceded by a presentation on the context of elections in Syria. The dialogue in the session was divided around the reality of elections in Syria (experiences: their context and details), the role of representative institutions in the recovery phase and determining its approaches, in addition to the role of civil society in cases and experiences of representation in various areas of control to support recovery efforts.
More details about the session can be found in the photo reports below.