The People's Assembly (), also known as the Transitional People's Assembly (), and occasionally as the First People's Assembly ()\, is Syria's first legislative term since the fall of the Assad regime, and the twenty-second since the founding of the republic in 1932.
The term of the People's Assembly is two and a half years (thirty months), subject to renewal. Therefore, if its term is not renewed, it will expire thirty months after its first sitting on 12 July 2026, on 12 January 2029.
Background Following the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024, the People's Assembly issued a statement calling that day a "historic day in the lives of all Syrians", stating that it would work towards ensuring the rule of law without discrimination. On 12 December 2024, the Syrian caretaker government suspended both the Assembly and the constitution for a three-month transitional period. The Assembly was formally dissolved on 29 January 2025, when the transitional authorities announced plans to establish an interim legislative council.
The Constitutional Declaration was adopted on 13 March, and provided for the establishment of a provisional legislature, also referred to as the "People's Assembly", to serve during a five-year transitional period. Under the transitional framework, one-third of the members are appointed by the president, while the remaining two-thirds are selected through electoral bodies supervised by a committee designated by the presidency.
On 2 June 2025, a presidential decree established the Higher Committee for People's Assembly Elections, an 11-member body responsible for overseeing the formation of electoral subcommittees tasked with selecting members of the Assembly. No time limit was set for the Committee to complete its work, and Syria's legislative and oversight vacuum accordingly extended for many months before the Assembly convened.
The convening of the Assembly's first sitting was repeatedly delayed: Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani announced, from the Manama Dialogue, that the sitting would be held at the end of November 2025, a date which passed without the sitting taking place and without any formal postponement being announced; President Ahmed al-Sharaa then announced, from the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in March 2026, that the sitting would be held at the end of April 2026, a date which likewise did not materialise.
On 1 November 2025, the Higher Committee for People's Assembly Elections announced what it described as the final results of member elections in the electoral districts of Syria's governorates, with the exception of Al-Hasakah, Raqqa and Suwayda governorates, for political and security reasons; the selection of Al-Hasakah's and Raqqa's members was completed by May 2026, while the Arab press reported a semi-official date of 8 June 2026 for the first sitting, following the announcement of the president's quota and final ratification of all members elected through the regional bodies, before this too was postponed again until 12 July.
Bureau of the People's Assembly + Position Name Party Tenure Speaker Abdul Hamid al-Awak Deputy Speaker 1st Mustafa al-Mousa 2nd Madonna Bishara Secretary Mu'ayyad Habib Elections of the Bureau The People's Assembly elected its bureau at the first sitting of the first special session, on 12 July 2026.
Members
The Assembly's membership includes 22 women, about 10.5% of its total seats, of whom seven were elected through the electoral bodies and 15 were appointed by President al-Sharaa as part of the supplementary third. The Assembly also has 12 Kurdish members, out of 210, or 5.7% of its total seats.
In July 2026, the Assembly announced the temporary suspension of member Mudar Hamdan's attendance and activities within the Assembly, following a campaign of accusations linking him to the former regime, pending review of his file and the issuing of recommendations by a specialised committee; the Assembly stressed that the suspension did not amount to a decision to expel him or terminate his membership.
Election and appointment On election day, 5 October 2025, 119 members were elected, after voting was postponed in 21 seats across Suwayda, Raqqa and Al-Hasakah governorates and the Ayn al-Arab district for security reasons. Additional election rounds were subsequently held on 23 October 2025, 17 March 2026 and 24 May 2026, raising the number of elected members to 137; the three seats in Suwayda Governorate remain vacant.
The President of Syria is to appoint 70 members, one-third of the assembly. By late May 2026, Syrian officials reported that President Ahmed al-Sharaa's list of appointees had been finalised and would be announced "in the coming days", and that the assembly's inaugural sitting had been preliminarily scheduled for 8 June 2026, after the Eid al-Adha holiday; the three Suwayda seats were to remain vacant until security conditions allowed elections there. Hawar News Agency reported that the first sitting of the People's Assembly would be held on 8 June 2026, but despite those reports, it did not convene.
On 30 June, it was officially confirmed that the list of al-Sharaa's appointees would be released on 1 July. Al-Sharaa's appointees were chosen by a committee that completed a series of meetings and closed interviews conducted between 15 and 21 June, interviewing 100 candidates. The appointments were officially announced on 1 July, with 15 women appointed. The Secretary-General of the People's Assembly, Muhammad Hamza Shamout, explained that the "supplementary third" of the Assembly's members comprises 23 notables and 47 qualified professionals, including 12 with master's degrees and 17 with PhDs.
Although the inaugural sitting had been scheduled for 6 July 2026, the Higher Committee for People's Assembly Elections postponed it on 5 July to an unspecified later date without publicly stating a reason. Under Article 39 of the provisional electoral system, the Higher Committee chairman must convene members for the first sitting within three to seven days of the decree naming the Assembly's members.
Postponement of the first sitting Reports on the reason for the delay diverged. Some accounts framed the postponement as more than an administrative matter, describing it as an early signal of the political balances shaping the new transitional period, with the delay tied to ongoing efforts to reach cross-bloc consensus on the Assembly's bureau — whose composition was seen as needing to reflect the political, ethnic and religious make-up of the new chamber. Other accounts linked it to security arrangements surrounding French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Damascus on 6 July and President al-Sharaa's attendance at the NATO summit in Ankara, with the sitting then expected to be rescheduled within a day or two. However, two Assembly members told Al-Quds al-Arabi they considered it unlikely the postponement was connected to the Macron visit, since it had long been scheduled and the Higher Committee chairman, a senior foreign ministry official, would have known of it in advance; they instead attributed the delay to objections raised over the "procedural instructions for the first sitting" document.
That document, circulated to members before the sitting scheduled for 6 July, drew objections on several points where it appeared to conflict with the Constitutional Declaration and the provisional electoral system: Who presides: the instructions gave the Higher Committee chairman an expanded role in opening the sitting, calling the roll, administering the oath and inviting the President to speak, before handing the chair to the oldest member after a recess and the start of the bureau elections — whereas Article 39 of the electoral system and Article 28 of the Constitutional Declaration both provide that the first sitting is chaired by the oldest member. The oath: the Constitutional Declaration provides for members to take the oath before the President, whereas the procedural instructions had them take it during the sitting under a different procedure; a separate account reported that the instructions instead provided for the oath to be taken before the Speaker of the Assembly rather than the President, framed as enshrining the principle of separation of powers. Timing of the President's address: the instructions had the Higher Committee chairman invite the President to speak during the first sitting, before the bureau election, whereas Article 40 of the electoral system provides for the elected Speaker of the Assembly to invite the President to address the second sitting. Bureau composition: Article 28 of the Constitutional Declaration provides for a Speaker, two deputy speakers and one secretary, while Article 39 of the electoral system provides for a Speaker, one deputy speaker and two secretaries; the instructions followed the formula of one deputy speaker and two secretaries. Voting threshold: the Constitutional Declaration specifies election "by majority" without defining whether this means an absolute majority, a majority of those present, or a plurality; the procedural instructions declared the candidate with the largest number of valid votes the winner regardless of whether this exceeded half the votes, without providing for a run-off round or a tie-breaking mechanism. New candidacy restriction: the instructions barred a candidate defeated in one bureau election from later standing for another bureau post during the same sitting, a restriction found in neither the Constitutional Declaration nor the electoral system.
Objectors also questioned the Higher Committee's impartiality in managing the sitting, noting that seven of its own members had themselves become Assembly members under the president's supplementary list.
Following the postponement, the Higher Committee created a WhatsApp group of 207 of the Assembly's 210 members (excluding the three vacant Suwayda seats), together with Higher Committee members, to discuss the upcoming sitting and canvass declared candidacies for the bureau posts alike; the disputed procedures were circulated there and confirmed in their final form, despite continued objections. Members said the sitting could not be held until a consensus was reached on forming a bureau reflecting the different components of Syrian society, and that this depended in part on President al-Sharaa's return from Turkey.
Candidates for the Bureau elections By early July, seven members had declared candidacies for Speaker: Abdul Hamid al-Awak, a legal adviser and member of the committee that drafted the Constitutional Declaration, appointed for Al-Hasakah Governorate; Azzam Khanji, elected for Mount Simeon, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a characterisation he has denied; Mohammed Ali Yassin, a presidential adviser appointed for Aleppo Governorate; Jaafar as-Sadiq Tahan, elected for the Azaz electoral district; Mu'ayyad Qabtour, elected for Azaz; Jamal an-Numeri, elected for Quneitra; and Mahmoud Asaad, elected for Tadmur. Despite the number of declared candidates, parliamentary and political sources described the real contest as narrowed to a small number of names, with contacts under way to persuade some to withdraw in favour of a consensus candidate who could spare the Assembly a contested vote in its first sitting.