Bashar Assad calls for parliamentary elections in Syria

Syria's Bashar Assad, who roughly controls only one-thirds of the country's territory despite Russian airstrikes since September 2015, called a parliamentary election for April 13, according to a statement issued by the presidency shortly after Washington and Moscow announced a ceasefire plan on Monday.

Syria's last parliamentary election was in 2012 and they are held every four years. That was the first time that multiple parties, not just the ruling Baath Party, were allowed to stand. However, the only electoral alliance running against the Baath led coalition included a fraction of Syrian communists and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, whose name and emblem bears clear references to the Nazi Party.

At the time, Assad appointed then-agriculture minister Riad Hijab to be Syria's new prime minister, who now leads the main opposition grouping to Assad's regime from the Saudi capital Riyadh.

In 2012, 168 of the 250 members of parliament that were elected for four-year terms were Baath-led National Progressive Front alliance members. This number was 169 in 2007 and 167 in 2003 elections. Since 1990, the seats won by the Baath Party stood at 134.

Assad also proved suprisingly popular in presidential elections since 2000, while the last election was the Assad performed the worst by receiving around 89 percent of the votes. His father Hafez Assad had never seen below 99 percent.

The seat distribution for regions of Syria was announced by the regime's agency SANA as: Damascus - 29, Damascus countryside - 19, Aleppo - 20, Aleppo countryside - 32, Homs - 23, Hama - 22, Latakia - 17, Idlib - 18, Tartous - 13, Raqqa - 8, Deir Ezzor - 14, Hasaka - 14, Daraa - 10, Sweida - 6 and Quneitra - 5.

The question of how the areas not controlled or partially controlled by the regime will be represented in parliament remains a mystery.
More than 260,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011, and millions have been forced to flee their homes.

At a November meeting in Vienna, world powers agreed on an ambitious but yet to be implemented road map that foresees six months of intra-Syrian talks, leading to a new constitution and free elections within 18 months.