Syrian legislative elections begin

The Syrian legislative elections began Sunday morning as some 7.6 million registered voters around the country started a two-day voting for a 250-member People's Assembly (parliament).

The Syrians are flowing to 10,898 polling stations in the country's 14 provinces to choose their representatives from 2,462 candidates, including 171 females, according to the new statistics released by the official SANA news agency.

Of the total 250 seats, 167 are reserved for the National Progressive Front (NPF), a political coalition led by Syria's ruling al-Baath party, and 131 seats are guaranteed to the party itself, or 52 percent of the total.

The other 83 seats are allocated to independent candidates.

There are about 12 million eligible electorates out of the country's 19-million population.

Syrian expatriates, army and police personnel are not allowed to cast their ballots in the parliamentary elections.

Source: Xinhua