Syrian local elections, 2011

Syrian local elections, 2012

22 December 2011

Local elections were held across Syria on 22 December, 2011 to elect 17,629 councillors in 1,355 administrative units. Some 42,000 candidates contested the elections.^[1] The election took place on the second day of an opposition called general strike, with the Arab and Kurdish opposition boycotting the election. The Syrian government claimed the elections were a success and enjoyed a high turnout, however turnout in many parts of the country was seen as low.^{[2][1][3][4][5][6]}

Background

The elections occur amidst the backdrop of the opening stages of the Syrian Civil War, which had initially started as protests and had evolved into increasingly violent confrontations. By December 2011 the Civil Uprising phase of the Civil War was mostly over, with the conflict taking an increasingly militaristic direction and significant fighting taking place across the country, particularly in the governorates of Idlib, Hama, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, and Rif Dimashq. The crisis had begun in March 2011, and by the local elections in December 2011 an estimates 5,000 people had been killed.^[1]

In the face of increasing unrest the Syrian government framed the elections as part of a wider reform agenda,^[1] claiming that a new local administration law brought in in August 2011 had granted local administrations more powers and financial independence. Other changes cited by the government included the elections being overseen by judicial committees as opposed to the Interior Ministry, and a change from a prior closed-list electoral system that guaranteed 50% of all municipal seats for the Ba'athist led National Progressive Front to a system without lists where citizens could vote for any candidate. More than 14.5 million Syrians were elegible to vote, including thousands of Kurds who had been granted citizenship by a Presidential decree in April 2011.^[2]

References

Elections and referendums in Syria
Presidential elections	1949 1953 1958 1971 1978 1985 1991 1999 2000 2007 2014
Parliamentary elections	1919 1928 1931 1932 1936 1943 1947 1949 1953 1954 1961 1973 1977 1981 1986 1990 1994 1998 2003 2007 2012 2016
Local elections	2011 2015 (Rojava)
Referendums	1949 1953 1958 1961 1971 1973 2012