The opening session of the newly constituted Parliament of Syria, which was scheduled to be held this Monday, has been suspended without a new date and for unexplained reasons, a few days after the transitional president, Ahmed al Shara, completed the composition of the Chamber by appointing a third of its members, a prerogative that remained under his control.
The president of the High Committee for Elections to the People's Assembly, Taha al Ahmad, has explained that the inauguration ceremony will be held at a later date yet to be determined, without offering further information in this regard, as reported by the Syrian state news agency, SANA.
For this day, the swearing-in of the new deputies was scheduled, after Al Ahmad made public on July 1 the names of all members of Parliament, including those proposed by Al Shara and those elected through a system of electoral colleges, in a context marked by criticism of the absence of direct suffrage and the broad powers concentrated in the Presidency.
The constitution of the new Assembly has been the focus of the debate on political reform in Syria in recent months, in parallel with Al Shara's promises to move towards greater inclusivity, although voices denouncing the dominant role of the leader, who appointed the committee responsible for configuring the electoral colleges that chose the other 140 parliamentarians, have not ceased.
Al Shara assumed the head of state after Al Assad's flight to Russia in December 2024, motivated by an offensive by jihadists and rebels led by Hatay Tahrir al Sham (HTS), a group headed by the current president, who has since promoted an approach to the West, which has led to his withdrawal from the jihadist lists and the lifting of sanctions against Damascus.