Syria’s Latakia Province Ready for Parliamentary Elections - Governor

DAMASCUS (Sputnik) – The upcoming parliamentary elections will be the second ones since the beginning of the armed conflict in Syria. The latest elections to the legislature were held in the country in May 2012 and the voter turnout then was 51 percent, equivalent to five million people, according to Syrian election committee chairman Khalaf al-Izzaoui.

"Latakia has finished all the necessary preparations for the elections. All the ballot boxes have been handed over to the heads of [electoral] districts in the province and the city," Ibrahim Khodr Salem said.

A total of 990 ballot boxes have been transferred to the polling stations in the province, Salem noted, specifying that they would open at 7:00 a.m. [04:00 GMT] and work until 9:00 p.m. [18:00 GMT]

The voters on April 13 will be provided with free public transport services, he added.

"All public facilities, where elections will be held, are safe and equipped from the logistic point of view, that would help the elections to be held successfully," the province’s governor stressed.

On February 22, Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree calling for parliamentary elections in the country on April 13. In late March, Assad told Sputnik in an interview that no major changes were expected in the country’s parliament after elections under current conditions.