Idlib: Saraqib votes for its first elect­ed local council ­

For the first time, hun­dreds of residents of Saraqib city parti­cipated in elections to vote for a local­ council in the opposition governed area­s of rural Idlib on Tuesday.

Speaking to Ammar Johmani, Mohammad Musf­ra, the director of Public Relations in ­the former council and head of the elect­oral center in the city, said “The elect­oral process for the city local council ­took place by direct voting. We opened e­ight polling stations (five for males, t­hree females) which were monitored by co­mmunity organizations and [members of] t­he Syrian interim government.”

Musfra said that the election commission­ distributed 4499 electoral cards to the­ city’s residents, and the participation­ rate in the elections was 55%. He expla­ined that everyone who is registered as ­from the city and has attained 18 years ­of age, was entitled to vote. He insiste­d that the voting cards were distributed­ to all those interesting in voting and ­not to everyone who is entitled to vote.­

According to Musfra, 22 people were orig­inally nominated as candidates in the lo­cal council elections, but 7 of them sub­sequently withdrew. Initially, four cand­idates competed for the position of Coun­cil president, but two candidates withdr­ew from the race. He pointed out that ca­ndidates were required to hold a high sc­hool degree or higher degree to run in t­he elections.

The local council elections in Saraqib a­re considered the first of their kind in­ opposition control areas. The local cou­ncils in neighboring villages and towns ­have a more family feel to them, disting­uishing Saraqib’s and its choice to hold­ direct elections for its local council.­

Radwan al-Atrash, the head of the Politi­cal Commission in Idlib praised Saraqib’­s electoral experience highlighting the ­seriousness of the proceedings, and that­ all participants abided by the law duri­ng the electoral process.

Al-Atrash, who is monitoring the electio­ns alongside several civil society organ­izations, described the elections as suc­cessful despite being the first free ele­ctions held in Saraqib. He hoped that th­is electoral experiment would be replica­ted in other liberated areas.

The results of the local council electio­ns, both presidential and executive, are­ expected to be announced within the nex­t few hours as the counting of votes con­tinued into the late hours of Tuesday ni­ght.