Syria goes to the polls in parliamentary elections

But President Assad opponents refuse to participate, saying the elections are designed to reinforce the regime's grip on power
Syrian parliamentary election begin amid heavy security
A Syrian woman stands next to a picture of Bashar al-Assad after voting in parliamentary elections in Damascus on 7 May. Photograph: Nabil Mounzer/EPA

Syrians have voted in parliamentary elections that were hailed by the government as a landmark in the country's reform programme, but derided as a sham by groups opposed to the current regime, who refused to take part.

Polls to elect members of Syria's 250-member parliament opened at 7am on Monday and closed 13 hours later, although many voting booths in the country's war-torn areas remained closed throughout the day or were poorly attended.

The elections follow an amendment to the Syrian constitution earlier this year that allowed multi-party candidates to contest positions in the legislature, which has played a largely secondary role in Syrian society. It has remained in the shadow of the dominant Ba'ath party – that has entrenched the four-decade rule of the Assad clan – rubber-stamping the government's agenda.

The ability of Bashar al-Assad's government to hold credible elections while Syria continues to be ravaged by a violent uprising will be closely monitored. Opposition groups said before the ballot that the process was designed to reinforce the regime's grip on power, rather than open up Syrian society to a plurality of voices and views.

The Syrian National Council (SNC), which has positioned itself as the main opposition group, has ignored the ballot and its members insist that the embattled regime cannot save itself with any sort of reform programme.

A key test of the election will be the performance of the Ba'ath party, which three months ago notionally lost its 50-year monopoly control over all aspects of Syrian society. However, with its pervasive reach into all aspects of civil life, the party has remained one of the most formidable weapons in the regime's attempts to weed out dissent as it attempts to reassert order after a ruthless 15-month crackdown.

Ba'ath party-aligned candidates took part in the ballot, which Damascus claims will attract a large number of the 15 million Syrians who are eligible to take part.

Activists say a clause in the ballot limiting a president to two terms of seven years is proof of its intent to stymie rather than foster change. The clause would not be applied retrospectively, meaning Assad would have 14 years to serve as president from the time the result is declared.

Opposition groups say parties standing against Assad have been sanctioned to do so by the regime and are not committed to driving meaningful change in the region's most inflexible police state.

Some opposition candidates were given airtime on state media and claimed that Syria was ready for fresh voices. Such statements were considered punishable before the uprising took hold, however the SNC insists that they do not amount to a credible threat to more than four decades of totalitarian rule.

Monday's election has generated little regional or international interest, with Assad's critics not expecting it to change the political or security landscape in the country, which continues to unravel in the face of an increasingly armed revolt.

Polling stations stayed largely closed in the most restive areas of the country, such as the battered third city of Homs, Idlib in the north and Deir Ezzor in the largely Kurdish north-east.

Over recent weeks, regime forces have intensified operations in all three areas.

The streets of Derra, where the uprising began in March 2011, appeared to be mostly abandoned throughout Monday.

Loyalist troops and militias have also been active in the second city, Aleppo, where a protest at one of the city's main universities was ruthlessly crushed last week, with scores reportedly killed. Days of large protests and clashes with security forces followed.

Between 9,000 and 10,000 civilians have been killed in the violence, which has transformed from a brutal suppression of demonstrators to a two-way fight involving armed activists, many of them military defectors.

The violence has continued despite a UN-brokered ceasefire that has been widely criticised as a failure. The plan's architect, special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, is due to report to the UN security council on what has been achieved since the plan came into effect in early April.

Meanwhile, Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday toured border districts in the deep south of the country that have housed thousands of refugees who have fled fighting in nearby towns and villages.

Erdogan, a vocal critic of Assad said the rebel groups fighting loyalist forces will eventually oust the regime.

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