DAMASCUS
Around 15 million Syrians cast their votes in 12,000 ballot boxes to elect their new lawmakers on Monday under the shadow of ongoing crackdown in their country.
Operations against opponents continued throughout Syria when the parliamentary elections was being held in the country.
A total of 250 lawmakers will be elected in the elections that will end at 10 p.m. local time.
Seventeen political parties join the elections, while Syrian people do not know most of the candidates and which of the candidate can serve the country in the best way.
A citizen, Abu Mustafa, said elections would bring stability to the country, and everybody was casting his/her votes with his/her free will.
"I think the new government will end the crackdown," Mustafa said.
Moreover, another citizen, Asim Abu Ridvan said he did not cast vote and abided by calls of the opponents to boycott the elections.
"Elections are held just to deceive every one. When people are expecting reforms, the regime is using another way to deceive people. Elections are taking place under the shadow of massacre," Ridvan said.
Ridvan said participation in elections would be low, but the administration would send the candidates it wanted the most to the parliament.
Abu Ridvan said prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers and deputy ministers would be appointed by the president under the 97th article of the new constitution, and therefore it would not be a fair election.
"The new government cannot solve the problems but just approve what the regime is saying," Ridvan said.
The 97th article of the new constitution, adopted by a referendum, says that the prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers and deputy ministers are appointed by the president and they present their resignations to the president.
According to recent figures of the human rights organizations in Syria, ten people were killed in operations in several cities and operations continued in many other places throughout the country.
