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Despite everything, elections. Syria held its third legislative elections on Sunday since the outbreak of war. The exercise, designed to give a democratic patina to the hereditary system installed in power for almost half a century, promises to confirm the supremacy of the candidates affiliated with the presidential party, the Baath. Although the elections, held only in areas under government control, had to be delayed by Covid-19, the shadow of the pandemic persisted.

According to the official SANA agency, numerous citizens appeared at the 7,277 open polling stations, distributed by the country's main column, from Damascus to Aleppo, and in the eastern cities of Hasaka and Deir Ezzor. Voters were able to decide who, among the 1,656 candidates - 200 of them women - will make up the 250 seats in the Syrian People's Assembly. SANA showed rows of young and adult voters casting their vote between measures of social distancing. "Today's is a political victory in addition to military victories , " said Hussein Arnous, acting minister following the dismissal of Imad Khamis amid economic protests.

One of the tasks of those elected to the new legislature will be the appointment of a new prime minister, to replace Arnous. Another, the approval of a new Constitution. Magna Carta is one of the main projects promoted by Russia, through the Astana tripartite table - together with Iran and Turkey - to close the Syrian crisis. The objective is to present the document as proof that the conflict has been overcome through a political solution.

However, and although government forces control most of Syria - with the exception of the northern fringe, whose territory is divided by extremist opposition forces with Turkish support, Kurdish and American forces - stability is far away . Syria as a whole is under the influence of an economic crisis exacerbated by the sharp devaluation of the local currency and the sanctions recently imposed by the United States, which, while threatening figures of the system, poison all relations with the country.

"Syrian money is useless. We have been using Turkish lira for a while , " complains Nur, a university professor at opposition Idlib. The same thing is believed by the residents of Sueida, in the extreme south, and in the official zone, hundreds of whom protested last month about the pyrrhic living conditions, also the result of triple-digit inflation. "The deputies will have to make exceptional efforts to improve services," a dentist at the ballot box told the France Presse agency.

The United Nations did not recognize the results of the last Syrian legislative elections, in 2016, alleging the lack of transparency of the process. This time, as then, a similar scenario is expected. "The Asad regime uses parliamentary elections to reward loyalty. This time, warlords and militiamen are expected to win even more seats for their contributions to the state over the past four years," says Karam Shaar, a Syrian expert on the Middle East Institute, to Al Jazeera.

According to the electoral convocation decree, which Bashar Asad signed last April - the vote was postponed twice due to the pandemic - 127 of the seats to be chosen must belong "to the sector of workers and peasants" and, the remaining 123, to "other groups of the population". Among the contenders for a seat in the chamber are businessmen sanctioned by Washington. Candidates belong to lists accepted by the system. The tolerated opposition is expected to boycott .

These elections not only coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Bashar Asad's rise to power, after the death of his father; also with the emergence of the coronavirus. Although according to official sources they have hardly registered cases, several health organizations have reported an increasing number of infections among their workers. In Idlib, where health facilities are extremely precarious - as a result of the Russian bombing campaign against such facilities - 17 cases have been confirmed in recent days. Many fear that it is the beginning of a new nightmare.

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