DAMASCUS / ISTANBUL 

Campaigning began Monday for next week’s parliamentary elections in Syria, the first since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024.

Syria will hold polls on Oct. 5 to choose two-thirds of the country’s People’s Assembly (parliament).

Electoral commission chief Mohammed Taha al-Ahmad said campaigning for the polls will continue until Friday evening.

Electoral silence will take effect on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s polls, he told the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

Ahmad said voting will start on Sunday at 9.00 am local time (0600 GMT).

He added that 1,578 candidates are vying for parliamentary seats across the country’s 50 districts. Women make up 14% of the total candidates.

On June 13, President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a decree establishing the High Election Committee, initially setting the number of parliamentary seats at 150 before expanding it to 210.

According to the decree, the committee is tasked with forming electoral bodies, which will elect two-thirds of the parliament. The remaining one-third will be appointed by the president.

Seats will be distributed across provinces based on population and categorized into constituencies for community leaders and intellectuals, in accordance with criteria set by the committee.

Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia last December, ending the Ba'ath Party regime, which had been in power since 1963. A new transitional administration led by al-Sharaa was formed in January.