Completion of the Syrian People’s Assembly: Between the Legacy of the Revolution and State-Building
The newly constituted Syrian People’s Assembly enters public life as one of the defining milestones of the country’s transitional period. It marks a moment in which the new authorities are testing the contours of political representation, while Syria itself is testing its capacity to move from the legacy of the revolution toward the project of state-building. The announcement by the Syrian Higher Committee for Elections, followed by President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s appointment of the remaining members of the Assembly after more than seven months of anticipation since the initial elections were held, has brought the country to one of the most significant constitutional milestones envisioned in the Constitutional Declaration. [1]
The significance of the Assembly, however, extends well beyond the delay in its formation or its legislative mandate alone. It lies equally in its potential to foster the emergence of political currents and parties, reshape political elites, rebuild state institutions, and broaden both civic and political space. In this sense, the Assembly’s composition cannot be understood merely through the identities of the presidentially appointed members who completed its membership, important though they are. Rather, it offers a window into how the transitional leadership conceives political representation itself and the role expected of the first legislature to emerge after the fall of the previous regime. This assumes even greater importance given that the Assembly’s mandate extends for two and a half years, renewable upon expiry, and that its inaugural term is likely to be predominantly legislative in nature, reflecting the urgent need to review thousands of existing decrees and laws alongside the adoption of hundreds of pending legislative proposals.
Accordingly, the Assembly should not be assessed through definitive judgments at this early stage, but rather through a set of preliminary observations shaped by the mechanisms of its formation and institutional composition. The ultimate measure of its significance will rest less on the circumstances of its establishment than on its performance, conduct, and ability to translate the aspirations of the transitional period into effective governance.
Elections: An Exceptional and Protracted Process
The elections for the Syrian People’s Assembly were conducted under an indirect electoral system established by the Constitutional Declaration and regulated through two presidential decrees that created the Higher Committee for Elections and fixed the Assembly’s membership at 210 seats. Of these, 140 members were elected indirectly, while the remaining 70 were appointed by the President of the Republic. The process relied on electoral colleges-subnational electoral bodies established across electoral districts according to specific criteria and entrusted with nominating and electing candidates. This mechanism was designed to address the extraordinary challenges posed by large-scale displacement and refugee movements, territorial fragmentation, and the impracticality of organizing nationwide direct elections during the transitional period.
The electoral process unfolded in two phases, reflecting the gradual expansion of the Syrian government’s territorial control. During the first phase, held in October 2025, areas that remained outside state control-including parts of the governorates of Al-Hasakah and Raqqa, the entirety of As-Suwayda, and portions of Aleppo Governorate-were excluded from participation. Consequently, only 119 members were elected, including six women, while approximately fourteen seats were allocated to Syria’s religious and ethnic communities. Elections were subsequently completed in territories formerly administered by the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria after their return to government control during 2026, culminating in the announcement of the presidential list of seventy appointed members and the completion of the Assembly’s formation.[2] Although this staggered process may be understood through the lens of electoral engineering, its primary rationale was functional: to improve the integrity and inclusiveness of the electoral process by addressing deficiencies that extended from the governing legal framework to the conduct of the elections themselves and the outcomes they ultimately produced.
Against this backdrop, the composition of the Assembly cannot be interpreted simply as a reflection of electoral outcomes. The architecture of the electoral process-built upon electoral colleges and complemented by presidential appointments-means that the identity of the Assembly is shaped as much by the institutional design of its formation as by the results of the elections themselves, if not more so. It is therefore the product of both an electoral process and a carefully constructed transitional framework, whose strengths and limitations will ultimately become evident through the Assembly’s institutional performance in the period ahead.
This is particularly significant given the limited oversight powers granted to the Assembly under the Constitutional Declaration. Its formal authorities include mechanisms such as granting or withdrawing confidence from the government, yet several legislative decrees have already been issued despite legislation formally falling within the Assembly’s exclusive jurisdiction. This institutional reality places considerable responsibility on the Assembly to develop and utilize alternative mechanisms of influence and accountability capable of compensating for the constitutional constraints imposed on its formal powers.
The Assembly’s Composition and the Politics of Appointment: Preliminary Observations
Early expectations suggested that the Assembly would primarily reflect Syria’s new ruling elite, represented by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has gradually evolved from an armed movement into the country’s dominant political class, occupying key decision-making positions across the state. These expectations were reinforced by speculation that several serving ministers and senior government officials would be appointed to the Assembly in order to secure its leadership and ensure institutional alignment with the executive branch. Yet, following months of anticipation and public debate, the final list of presidential appointees revealed a composition that differed considerably from these expectations. It reflected a broader range of political, social, and regional backgrounds and brought together figures associated with both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Syria, although the latter understandably retained greater prominence.
The appointed members included approximately nine figures associated with the Syrian opposition coalition, most notably Anas al-Abdah and Badr Jamous. The appointments also encompassed former leaders of armed factions, including Munther Sarras, the former commander of Faylaq al-Sham in Homs Governorate, who is widely known for his close ties to Turkish political circles; Hassan al-Daghim, a former leader of the Ahrar al-Sham movement; and Kinan al-Nahhas. In addition, the list incorporated tribal leaders and prominent local notables, particularly from northeastern Syria. One particularly noteworthy appointment was Sheikh Abdul Munim al-Nasif, head of the Syrian Council of Tribes and Clans, who had called on Syrian tribes to undertake a “general mobilization” during the events that unfolded in As-Suwayda in July. Nevertheless, both the Al-Baggara and Al-Busaraya tribes publicly criticized what they described as their marginalization in the allocation of appointed seats. Geographically, Aleppo Governorate secured the largest share of representation, with a total of forty-six members, while the southern governorates collectively received the lowest levels of representation, with As-Suwayda receiving only two seats.
Equally striking is the relative absence of Syria’s traditional political and social power brokers. Religious scholars, established religious networks in Damascus, and Aleppo’s longstanding merchant class neither emerged as influential electoral actors nor successfully promoted prominent candidates from their respective constituencies. By contrast, new actors have assumed greater visibility, particularly tribal networks in Deir ez-Zor, whose symbolic and political significance has expanded since the fall of the previous regime. The renewed prominence of tribes reflects both their evolving relationship with the new administration and a broader perception among many tribal constituencies that political representation has been restored under a predominantly Sunni-led governing order. Alongside these actors has emerged another current that may be described as a modernist revolutionary tendency-one broadly committed to the values of the Syrian revolution without rigid ideological alignment. This development may itself be one of the legacies of the revolutionary years, while also reflecting the continuing lack of comprehensive public information regarding many of the candidates, and even more so concerning several of the appointed members.
Viewed through a social and professional rather than a purely political lens, the Assembly consists of several overlapping constituencies. These include a revolutionary bloc with military backgrounds; a technocratic and professional bloc composed of academics, physicians, engineers, lawyers, defected judges, and professionals; representatives of civil society and humanitarian organizations; local community leaders; business figures; and a tribal bloc concentrated primarily in northeastern Syria. At present, however, these groupings appear less like coherent political blocs than a broad representative umbrella designed to widen participation, enhance internal and external confidence, and project a degree of political balance, rather than to institutionalize clearly defined political alignments within the Assembly.
This may also explain why the Assembly, in its current form, has been left without a clearly defined political identity, mirroring the unresolved nature of several fundamental questions confronting the Syrian transition. These include the future relationship between religion and the state, the character of the country’s economic model, the design of its political system, and the place of other political forces within public life. In this sense, the Assembly reflects a transition whose political map remains unsettled rather than signaling the completion of that transition.
This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that, throughout the electoral process, candidates generally did not present themselves as representatives of organized political parties or ideological movements, with the notable exception of a single electoral list in Damascus. This reflected the continued absence of legally institutionalized political parties, the fragmentation of many of their organizational cadres, and the fact that large numbers of political activists remain outside the country. Consequently, neither the elections nor the presidential appointments have, thus far, produced clearly identifiable ideological blocs or programmatic political competition. Nevertheless, the Assembly’s overall composition appears to lean, in broad social and cultural terms, toward political conservatism, although the degree of this orientation varies across Syria’s different governorates.
Finally, beyond the continuing debate over the relatively modest number of women in both the elected and appointed membership-who collectively occupy twenty-one seats-the pattern of women’s representation itself deserves attention. Female representation remains overwhelmingly concentrated in urban areas, with limited inclusion of women from rural communities, the Syrian steppe, and peripheral regions. This reflects a longstanding tension within Syrian political and social life concerning the uneven geography of representation, a debate that has resurfaced in the context of the country’s ongoing transition.
A second noteworthy observation emerged during the electoral process itself. With the exception of a single electoral list in Damascus, no candidate presented themselves as representing a political party or ideological current. This reflected the continued absence of legally organized political parties, the fragmentation of existing political organizations, and the fact that many of their cadres have yet to return to Syria. Equally absent was programmatic electoral competition, as campaigns were not structured around competing political platforms. Ironically, the very legislation governing political parties is expected to feature prominently on the Assembly’s legislative agenda. Consequently, neither the elections nor the subsequent presidential appointments have, thus far, produced clearly identifiable ideological blocs or cohesive political alignments within the People’s Assembly.
This does not mean that informal patterns of coordination are absent. Regional dynamics have become increasingly visible, with reports of behind-the-scenes understandings aimed at influencing the selection of the Assembly’s Speaker and coordinating positions among representatives from particular governorates. Members elected from Aleppo, for example, are widely believed to be acting in concert, while representatives from Damascus and its surrounding countryside appear to be coordinating as a single regional bloc. Whether such arrangements evolve into more durable forms of regional political organization remains an important question for understanding the character of Syria’s transitional politics.
Perhaps the most conspicuous absence is that of the Muslim Brotherhood. This comes despite widespread speculation regarding its potential participation, particularly in Aleppo, its public calls for holding the elections before they took place, and its apparent efforts to establish channels of communication with the new administration. From one perspective, this exclusion is unsurprising given the enduring legacy of the confrontation between the Brotherhood and the Syrian state during the 1980s, the organizational setbacks the movement experienced throughout the years of the revolution, and its subsequent fragmentation in exile. Even so, its continued absence remains closely watched, particularly by regional actors monitoring the movement’s future role and organizational activity inside Syria.
A similar pattern can be observed within Syria’s broader civilian political current. Several prominent public figures who played influential roles before and during the revolution are absent from the Assembly. Among the most notable is Moaz al-Khatib, the former president of the Syrian National Coalition, whose recent meeting with President Ahmed al-Sharaa fueled speculation that he might be appointed to the Assembly before reports emerged that he had declined such a position.
The composition of the Assembly also reveals the limited inclusion of Kurdish figures associated with, or politically close to, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). While the Kurdish National Council announced that it had secured three seats, the absence of personalities linked to the SDF may reflect an effort to limit its institutional influence and avoid strengthening its negotiating position during the ongoing process of integrating northeastern Syria into the state’s political and administrative structures.
Taken together, these patterns suggest, as a preliminary assessment, that the Assembly’s overall orientation leans toward the centre-right, although its political identity remains far from settled. Rather than representing a fully consolidated political institution, it is better understood as an open transitional structure whose future character will ultimately depend on the role it assumes vis-à-vis the executive and judicial branches, as well as its broader place within Syria’s evolving system of governance.
Conclusion
In periods of political transition, discussions of elections are almost invariably accompanied by comparisons with other transitional experiences-some successful, others troubled, and many occupying the space in between. Cases ranging from Iraq and Lebanon to Libya, as well as several countries in Africa and Latin America, are frequently invoked as points of reference. Yet every transition unfolds within its own historical, political, and social context, even when comparative experiences offer valuable lessons. What remains consistent across these cases is that electoral processes and the establishment of representative legislative institutions constitute fundamental components of rebuilding political consensus, dismantling the legacy of authoritarianism, and renewing political elites, particularly during periods of institutional transformation.
At the same time, political transitions rarely follow a linear trajectory, nor can they be understood through institutional design alone. Syria’s experience is no exception. Despite the many controversies surrounding the electoral process-from the formation of the electoral colleges and the conduct of the elections to the presidential appointment mechanism-the ultimate success or failure of this institutional experiment will depend less on its design than on the political and institutional practices that accompany it. Above all, it will depend on the conduct of the new People’s Assembly itself: its ability to preserve a meaningful degree of institutional independence, avoid becoming merely an administrative extension of the executive, and effectively address the complex legislative and political challenges inherited from the transitional period.
Equally important will be the Assembly’s capacity to influence public policymaking and contribute to shaping the future trajectory of the Syrian state during this critical phase. Its performance will also determine whether the current institutional framework can evolve into the conditions necessary for genuinely competitive and fully representative democratic elections in its next electoral cycle. Ultimately, the consolidation of Syria’s transition will depend not only on the effectiveness of state institutions but also on the re-emergence of an active and autonomous civil society capable of serving as an indispensable partner in safeguarding the transitional process and supporting the long-term project of state-building.
[1] This analysis was completed prior to the announcement postponing the inaugural session of the People’s Assembly until further notice. The postponement is widely believed to be linked to the scheduled visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Syria on the same day the Assembly was due to convene. However, other sources suggest that several additional factors contributed to the delay, including objections raised by Assembly members to the proposed rules of procedure for the opening session, as well as the absence of consensus over the election of the Assembly’s Speaker and ongoing efforts by the executive to shape and secure the outcome of that process.
[2] It should also be noted that three seats allocated to As-Suwayda Governorate remain vacant pending elections. In addition, one seat remains unfilled following the death of the elected member Mustafa Kulthum, who represented the Jisr al-Shughur district in Idlib Governorate.