Syrians to elect Assembly members today

Syrian citizens will head today morning to balloting boxes to elect their representatives for the 7th parliamentary term of the 250-seat People's Assembly.

The number of candidates reached 7,346, and some 8,498 election centers were opened in all the Syrian provinces. The huge celebrations recently held throughout the 14 Syrian provinces have shown the citizens readiness for this democratic manifestation.

On Saturday morning, Syrian Minister of the Interior Muhammad Harba presided over the meeting of the central committee in charge of supervising the PA elections. He asserted that the PA elections in Syria are but a national duty for all the 6.6 million citizens who are elegible for voting, and that the process is the embodiment of the democratic process attained in the country "under the leadership of president Assad," SANA reported.

In a special report of "the day of election," SANA reported that democracy in Syria is not new, and it goes back to the year 1918 when Damascus witnessed that year what was known then as "the Syrian congress." In the following years, the Syrian people voted many times in general elections for the parliament. The agency added that presidential decree no. 477, 1971, enacted by Syria's President al-Assad, was the first real step toward laying the foundations of the present democratic life in Syria, in its current shape. The Syrian People's Assembly was formed.

Throughout the past 28 years, the PA has discussed and passed the first constitution in Syria, the Local Administration Law, and hundreds of other laws and decrees. The election, the agency continued, which finished on Saturday was a colorful contest, but it was an orderly democratic festival and proved that all people respect and act with dignity within the law.

The Syrian Ministry of the Interior asked the central committees all over the Syrian provinces to instruct polling committees to abide by the regulations of the General Elections Law.

Voting for a new term of the Syrian PA starts at 7 a.m. (Damascus Local time) and will last until 8 p.m. It will resume at 7 a.m. on Tuesday and last until 2 p.m.