Syria postpones selection of lawmakers from Druze and Kurdish-held areas

A Syrian official says that the selection process planned for a transitional parliament next month will be postponed in Druze-majority Sweida and two Kurdish-held provinces.

After toppling longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Syria’s new authorities, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, dissolved the Assad-era parliament and adopted a temporary constitution for a five-year transition.

The interim charter has been criticized for concentrating power in Sharaa’s hands after decades of autocracy under Assad and for failing to reflect Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity.

The selection of the transitional parliament is planned for September 15-20. Appointed local bodies will pick two-thirds of the 210 lawmakers and Sharaa will name the rest.

But the process will be postponed in Druze-majority Sweida province in the south, and in Raqqa and Hasakeh in the north and northeast “until the appropriate conditions and a safe environment are available,” the official SANA news agency quotes organizing committee member Nawar Najmeh as saying.

Sweida province saw deadly sectarian clashes last month, with access to the province still difficult and the security situation tense.

A Kurdish administration largely controls Raqqa and Hasakeh provinces.

Implementation of a March 10 deal on integrating Kurdish institutions into those of the central government has been held up by differences between the two sides.

The postponement is due to “the security challenges these provinces are witnessing” and is “to ensure fair representation” in those areas, Najmeh says.

Seats will be “reserved” in the transitional legislative body for the three provinces to fill at a later date, he says, adding that the selection process can only go ahead in “territories controlled by the state.”

The new body will have a renewable mandate of 30 months.