Results from election in Syria put the nation’s challenges on display

 

Syria’s October 5 parliamentary election results are in. Fragility and complexity are front and center.

“You’ve got a new government trying to enact a new system of law and even create a new constitution over the next four years,” says Samuel* with Redemptive Stories. “There’s a lot at stake for what [this election] means, particularly for minorities.”

Samuel notes that under the previous al-Assad regime, women held respected roles in society. But in last week’s election, only six women and 10 members of minorities were among the nearly 120 seats chosen. Two of those seats went to representatives for Christians — less than 1% of the total 210-member parliament.

“With a more Sunni conservative government, those voices will be pushed more or brushed more aside,” Samuel says of women and minorities.

That’s not the only factor complicating Syria’s government. Elections for 21 more parliamentary seats were delayed in two Kurdish-controlled provinces as well as one in the south of Syria. The delay stems from the government’s continued tensions with Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria as well as predominantly Druze communities in Suwayda.

Another 70 seats in parliament (one third of the total body) await direct appointment by President Ahmed al-Sharaa. It’s possible that his appointments could correct the imbalances in the new government.

What does this election mean for believers in Syria?

“I think more and more Christians are realizing that this is not a place that will be safe for them,” says Samuel. “What this mean[s] for the Church is that that ethnic Christian [population] will continue, I think, to decrease.”

Ethnicity is no barrier to God or the gospel, of course. But it is a factor in Syria, where certain people groups are considered to be Christian.

“The prayer would be that there would be more of a desire of Christians to stay and to remain in order to be a light for their community,” says Samuel. “But as those numbers continue to probably actually dwindle, then the church also needs to be engaged in raising up leaders from a Muslim background, Alawite background, Druze background [and] Kurdish Muslim background in order to fill in the gap where the ethnic Christian churches might exit.”Syria