Syrians call for revamping election laws

A series of workshops have been taking place across Syria this week in a move to modernise local election laws and encourage community involvement. The workshops, organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), complement the country’s recently established modernisation and reform programme. “The focus was to really get honest opinions about the effectiveness of the law and local elections in general,” said Khalid al-Moualem, the UNDP’s programme officer in Damascus. “This is the first debate or discussion of its kind regarding this matter. These opinions and recommendations will be the base of our recommendations in providing the government with adequate amendments.” The main problem with the election law is that it is weak, workshop participants said. “People brought up articles referring to age and education requirements of candidates, saying that the age needs to be raised to 23 and minimum education requirements need to be raised to at least a high school degree,” he explained. The present educational requirements for a local election candidate are that the person is able to read and write. “People have said that such low qualifications in education and experience is why they don't take local councils seriously and don't see them as an adequate body to take their concerns to Damascus,” al-Moualem said. He explained that women also voiced their concerns, asking for a minimum quota for their participation, adding that at present it was not substantive. “People have also voiced the need for electoral cultural awareness. They said that the national media need to pay attention not only when the results are out, but also when the actual process is happening for monitoring and evaluation purposes.” The workshops took place in the Tartous governorate, 258 km to the northwest of Damascus, in Hama, 209 km to the north of the capital and in Dara, 101 km to the south of the capital. “The elected members of the local councils do not have the capacity that enables them to serve society, the role of the media is not satisfactory and society lacks electoral education,” Ahmad Saeed al-Amer, a member of the Dara governorate local council affirmed. “For example, people still adhere to tribal culture and law monitoring is ineffective.” The US $181,000 project to support local elections, was signed by the Syrian government and UNDP in March. It will be completed by 31 December 2005, with local elections slated for 2007.