Syria's parliament is set to meet for the first time since the fall of Bashar Al Assad as president, after elections were held on Sunday in areas regained from Kurdish-led fighters.
Polling took place in several parts of north-eastern Syria that were not under government control when a parliamentary election took place last October.
Seats in those areas, including in the cities of Hasakah, Qamishli and Kobani, are now being filled after clashes in January led to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) ceding control to the government.
Nawar Najmeh, a spokesman for Syria's elections committee, told state media Sunday's polling has paved the way for the new People's Assembly to meet for the first time. The main election in October was seen as having strengthened President Ahmad Al Shara's hand after religious conservatives won most of the seats.
The voting was regarded as a first but limited step towards democratic rule. Only about 6,000 designated electors were allowed to vote, with a third of People's Assembly members directly appointed by the President.
Mr Najmeh said the assembly will convene once that has happened. The last election took place in 2024 while Syria was still under Al Assad rule, with the parliament widely seen as a rubber stamp.
Since leading the rebel offensive that ended the Assad era, Mr Al Shara has struck up an alliance with the US, secured Gulf investment and sought to project a moderate image to foreign powers, despite his own background as an Islamist militant.
Questions have been raised over the inclusion of Syria's minorities, of whom only a few were elected in October's polling. Only a handful were women, of whom Mr Nijmeh said at the time “did not rise to their position in Syrian society”.
Members of the country's Kurdish, Alawite and Druze minorities have all put up resistance to Mr Al Shara's bid for unified control of Syria. Clashes between the government and the SDF almost spiralled into all-out war in January before an integration deal was reached.
The SDF was once supported by the US as an ally in the fight against ISIS, but Washington made clear it would not stand in the way of Mr Al Shara's forces retaking the militia's territory.
