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Brisbane: Women’s political participation is often treated as a measure of a country’s commitment to equality and democracy.

Earlier this year, Syria’s new leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, described his country as moving in a “democratic direction” after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in late 2024. He said:

If democracy means that the people decide who will rule them and who represents them in the parliament, then, yes, Syria is going in this direction.

Yet, in Syria’s recent parliamentary elections, women only won six seats in the 210-member body. Exclusion was not merely reflected in the outcome; it was engineered into the very structure of the process.

Assad ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than two decades through widespread repression, war crimes and sys

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