Voting to elect a new parliament was under way in Syria yesterday, its third such poll since a pro-democracy uprising erupted against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.
The one-day vote has been postponed twice since April due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
The voter turnout was sluggish in different government-controlled areas, local witnesses said.
Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that Assad and his wife had voted in the capital Damascus.
The agency showed images of voters casting their ballots inside some of the 7,277 polling centres in the country.
SANA said voters had shown up at polling stations since the early hours but did not give specific figures on voter turnout.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem hailed the vote. “Elections are a constitutional obligation that confirms Syria’s determination to exercise its national sovereignty,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a bomb planted under a car exploded near a polling station in the southern province of Daraa.
One person was injured in the blast for which no-one has claimed responsibility.
The polls, which opened at 7am (0400 GMT), were extended by four hours to last until 11pm (2000 GMT), in all polling stations, the election commission said.
The vote is also being held in areas where the government has partial control, such as Idlib in Syria’s northwest and Raqqa in the north.
On Saturday, an anti-government Kurdish administration running a self-governing region in northern Syria said it would not allow the polls to take place in areas under its control.
The elections come more than a month after new sanctions imposed by the United States came into effect on key figures in the Syrian regime, and amid a deepening economic crisis.
Some 1,656 candidates, including 200 women, are standing for the 250-strong parliament, SANA reported.
Most contenders belong to the ruling Baath party and loyal groups. Official results are expected by tomorrow.
The elections are being held two days after Assad marked the 20th anniversary of succeeding his father, Hafez, who died in 2000.
Assad’s Baath Party and its allies are anticipated to win the majority of seats in the parliament elected for a four-year mandate.