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"Syrian Kurds took part in the first People's Assembly elections since the transitional government took power, with Kurdish political forces expressing concern over the lack of representation in parliament in the north-east of the country. Footage filmed in the city of Al-Hasakah on Sunday shows voters casting ballots, as well as Kurdish internal security forces deployed to secure the electoral process. Anas al-Abda, a member of the Supreme Commission for the Syrian People's Assembly Elections, described the Kurdish community's participation as 'active and well-deserved'. Voter Shivan Ibrahim emphasised the importance of Kurds participation, sharing concern that 'current proportion does not represent the true size of the Kurdish people in Syria'. "There is no other alternative for the Kurdish political movement at present. There were supposed to be representative proportions and quotas for all communities to ensure their entry into parliament," he added. In turn, candidate Radwan Sido explained that participation in the political process aims to defend the rights of the Kurdish people and enshrine their national rights in the forthcoming constitution. The spokesperson for the Supreme Committee for People's Council Elections of the transitional government, Nawar Najma, announced the success of the electoral process in Al-Hasakah Governorate and the Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) area in Aleppo Governorate, emphasising that "the people of Al-Hasakah have succeeded in speaking their true minds before the Syrians and the world, and have demonstrated the Syrian people's capacity for participation." On Tuesday, 24 Kurdish political parties and groups in north-eastern Syria issued a statement rejecting the mechanism for allocating seats reserved for the Kurdish community in the Syrian People's Assembly elections, describing the allocation of just four seats to the Kurds as a 'political execution' of their rights. The parties demanded parliamentary representation of no fewer than 40 seats for Kurdish representatives from 'Rojava Kurdistan', commensurate with the 'actual population size' of Kurds in Syria. In October, the High Electoral Commission had announced the names of 119 members of the new People's Assembly, out of a total of 140 members who were to be selected through regional bodies, in accordance with an indirect mechanism stipulated in the Constitutional Declaration for the transitional phase. At that time, 21 seats remained vacant in the provinces of Al-Hasakah, Raqqa and As-Suwayda for reasons the Commission described as 'security-related.' In March, elections were held in Raqqa province, and four candidates won after a turnout exceeding 90 per cent. Following the filling of vacancies in northern and north-eastern Syria on Sunday, three elected seats allocated to the province of Suwayda remain vacant, and the province remains excluded from the process nearly a year after the bloody violence it witnessed last July. In December 2024, the current transitional government took power in Damascus, with Ahmad al-Sharaa subsequently appointed as Syria's transitional president, promising to form an inclusive government."
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