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Syria’s Sharaa says it will take four to five years to hold presidential election

Beirut, Lebanon
Reuters

Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Monday it would take between four and five years to hold presidential elections, the first time he has laid out a timeline for the vote since he was named transitional president last week.


Syria’s newly appointed President for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa visits Saudi Data and AI Authority, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 2nd February, 2025. PICTURE: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters.

Sharaa, who headed the Islamist rebel group that led a lightning offensive that toppled autocratic President Bashar al-Assad in early December, was declared transitional president on 30th January.

“I estimate that the period will be between four to five years until elections because there is a need for a vast infrastructure, and this infrastructure needs to be re-established and establishing it needs time,” Sharaa told Syria TV in an interview aired on Monday.

He said Syrian authorities would need to consolidate data on the country’s population to update its electoral data, adding: “Without this matter, any elections held will be doubted.”



Sharaa said Syria would apply international norms on transitional periods, including how they apply to a president during that time. Based on those norms, he said, Syria would “ultimately go to an elected presidency and an elected authority.”

He did not specify which international norms he had reviewed to determine the timeline he set out.


CAR BOMB KILLS 20 IN NORTHERN SYRIA, DEADLIEST SINCE ASSAD TOPPLED

A car bomb killed at least 20 people in the northern Syrian city of Manbij on Monday, the Syrian presidency said, marking the second attack there in three days and the country’s deadliest since Bashar al-Assad was toppled from power in December.

The presidency’s statement said it will hold the perpetrators of what it described as a “terror attack” accountable.

“This crime will not pass without the most severe punishment against its perpetrators to serve as an example against those who will try to tamper with the security of Syria or harm its people,” the presidency said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack in Manbij, located some 30 kilometres from the Turkish border. At least 14 of the dead were women, according to a preliminary toll issued earlier by the civil defence rescue service and another 15 women were wounded.

The victims were agricultural workers and the death toll was likely to increase, a civil defence official told Reuters.

Manbij has changed hands numerous times during Syria’s 13-year civil war, most recently in December when Turkish-backed groups captured it from the US-backed SDF, which is led by the Kurdish YPG militia.

The SDF had taken Manbij from Islamic State militants in 2016.

On Saturday, a car bomb in Manbij killed four civilians and wounded nine others, including children, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

Assad was ousted from power on 8tH December after a lightning offensive by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was declared Syria’s transitional President last week.

– Reporting by CLAUDA TANIOS, JANA CHOUKEIR, NAYERA ABDALLAH in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; KINDA MAKIEH AND KHALIL ASHAWI in Damascus, Syria; JAIDAA TAHA AND MENNA ALAA EL-DIN in Cairo, Egypt/Reuters


When Sharaa was declared transitional President, he was also empowered to form a temporary legislative council for a transitional period and the Syrian constitution was suspended.

He has pledged to embark on a political transition including a national conference to produce an inclusive government.

Sharaa said that a preparatory committee would be formed to hold consultations across Syria.

“Then, it will invite those we think represent the Syrian people in general,” he said.

The conference will discuss “all the important problems in Syria” and produce a final statement that would form the basis of a “constitutional declaration,” he said.

Sharaa had said in December that drafting a new constitution could take up to three years.

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