Syrians vote in parliamentary poll with Assad’s Baath party running virtually unopposed

Syrians in government-held areas are voting in their fourth parliamentary election since civil war erupted in 2011, a poll expected to keep President Bashar Assad’s ruling Baath party in power.

The Baath party — in power since 1963 — and its secular left-wing and Arab nationalist allies are running virtually unopposed, with independents the only alternative.

More than 1,500 people are standing for 250 seats in the largely rubber-stamp parliament, after some 7,400 candidates withdrew in recent days, according to Syria’s Supreme Judicial Elections Committee.

“We have to take responsibility for electing good people and not repeating the mistakes of the past in voting for old names who can’t change anything,” says health ministry employee Bodoor Abu Ghazaleh, 49, among those voting at a polling station in Damascus.

Under Syria’s quota system, 127 seats are reserved for candidates who are workers or farmers, while the remaining 123 are open to other professions.

The Baath party is expected to secure most of the seats in the legislative ballot, which is held every four years.

With help from key allies Iran and Russia, Damascus has regained control of much of the territory it lost early in Syria’s 13-year-old civil war, which began with the repression of anti-government protests.