Syria holds first elections since Assad
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Syria is holding its first parliamentary elections since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last December -- but the vast majority of the population can't vote and the president is choosing many of the candidates.
Also, can the US-led peace plan for Gaza work? We'll hear about the key negotiations due to begin in Cairo and ask whether it's feasible to expect Hamas to disarm. And a bigger question: when does anti-Zionism equate to anti-Semitism?
Plus a legendary guitar goes on display in a shop in London.
Picture: Voting begins for representatives of Syria's new parliament in Damascus on October 5, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live in the BBC World Service studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:16.6 | We're beginning in the Middle East, but not Gaza. We'll get to the big developments there in a moment. |
| 0:22.3 | We're starting in Syria, where just to remind you how quickly history can turn. This time last year, |
| 0:28.9 | Bashar al-Assad was still in power, his family's dynastic dictatorship, having gripped the country for decades. |
| 0:36.3 | The country's still ragged and gasping from its years of civil war. |
| 0:41.2 | Well, today Syria is holding its first parliamentary election since the fall of Assad |
| 0:45.0 | and the taker of the takeover of the one-time Islamist militant, now interim president, Ahmed al-Shara. |
| 0:52.1 | It's not direct democracy, as many of us would recognize it, |
| 0:56.0 | nor is it happening across the whole of the country. |
| 0:59.2 | We'll get into that in a moment with our correspondent in Damascus. |
| 1:02.5 | But before that, a flavour of opinion from the capital that our team there have gathered. |
| 1:07.9 | Me, actually, I'm not feeling any difference for the safety of girls and everything. |
| 1:13.4 | No, I don't feel any different. |
| 1:14.7 | The prices are the same and everything is expensive. |
| 1:18.9 | As I see, everything is good now. |
| 1:21.3 | Everything is better. |
| 1:22.6 | You can go anywhere without any security. |
| 1:26.6 | So I'm feeling free and I'm feeling good for the future, |
| 1:30.7 | as I hope. Are you afraid of a new dictatorship? No, we're not. No, we're not. No, we're not afraid |
| 1:37.3 | of new dictatorship. Everybody is walking on the street, comfortable, whatever they are wearing, |
| 1:42.6 | wherever their religion was. They say |
... |
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