Damascus, May 7 (IANS) Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Al Sha'ar said Monday that the parliamentary elections are moving smoothly with a "remarkable" turnout.
"The voting is moving normally... There is no problem so far except some matters that usually happen in any electoral climate," he was quoted as saying by the state-run SANA news agency, reported Xinhua.
Meanwhile, Khalaf al-Azawi, head of the higher committee for elections, said there is no complaint so far about the voting process.
Syrians across the country began to cast their ballots on Monday to elect their representatives in the 250-seat parliament, the first in light of the new constitution in the country.
The electoral campaign by 7,195 candidates, including 710 women, has been halted nearly 48 hours ahead of the voting that started at 7 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) Monday.
There are some 12,151 balloting booths across the country. The number of eligible voters reached 14,788 million out of Syria's 24 million inhabitants.
The elections are supervised by an independent judicial committee and will be covered by more than 200 Arab and foreign media outlets, in addition to more than 100 intellectuals and lawmen from foreign countries to monitor the elections.
Syrian Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud said a day earlier that the elections are the first to be held on the basis of the new constitution and pluralism.
Mahmoud said the Syrian people, through their voting, "is challenging the campaign of terrorism and aggression launched on Syria by regional and international powers".
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