DAMASCUS, OCT 5 (AFP/APP): Syria will select members of its first post-Assad parliament on Sunday in a process criticised as undemocratic, with a third of the members appointed by interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The assembly’s formation is set to consolidate the power of Sharaa, whose Islamist forces led a coalition that toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war and five decades of one-family rule.

According to the organising committee, more than 1,500 candidates — just 14 percent of them women — are running for the assembly, which will have a renewable 30-month mandate.

  Sharaa is to appoint 70 representatives out of the 210-member body.

The other two-thirds will be selected by local committees appointed by the electoral commission, which itself was appointed by Sharaa.

But southern Syria’s Druze-majority Sweida province, which suffered sectarian bloodshed in July, and the country’s Kurdish-held northeast are excluded from the process for now as they are outside Damascus’s control, and their 32 seats will remain empty.

“I support the authorities and I’m ready to defend them, but these aren’t real elections,” said Louay al-Arfi, 77, a retired civil servant sitting with friends at a Damascus cafe.

“It’s a necessity in the transitional phase, but we want direct elections” to follow, he told AFP.

Under a temporary constitution announced in March, the incoming parliament will exercise legislative functions until a permanent constitution is adopted and new elections are held.

Sharaa has said it would be impossible to organise direct elections now, noting the large number of Syrians who lack documentation after millions fled abroad or were displaced internally during the country’s civil war.