Syria holds parliamentary vote with no surprises expected

DAMASCUS, Syria (Reuters) - Syrians in government-held areas headed to the polls on Monday to elect a new parliament, a vote expected to yield few surprises and labelled a farce by political opposition groups.

Voters were electing 250 lawmakers to parliament, which has little real power in Syria's presidential system, with two-thirds of seats reserved for members of President Bashar al-Assad's Baath party.

More than 13 years after the onset of the Syrian civil war, Assad's government controls most of Syria after Iran and Russia helped him beat back rebel groups. The north-east remains held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and Islamist and Turkish-backed rebels hold parts of the north-west, while more than 5 million Syrians are refugees abroad and unable to vote.

The country's economy remains in dire straits with high inflation and little foreign investment amid western sanctions and a stalled U.N.-led process meant to find a political solution to the conflict.

At a Damascus polling centre, government employee Bassem Badran said he hoped the new chamber would help improve the economic situation.

"We are always hopeful that in each phase good will come to this country, that there will be tangible steps to have real improvements for the economic and living conditions of Syrian citizens."

The Istanbul-based Syrian Negotiation Commission that represents a broad coalition of mainstream opposition groups echoed a widespread sentiment by Assad opponents that the elections were a sham.

"Everything that the regime does in these theatrical parliamentary elections is a sham to reproduce itself as a totalitarian and authoritarian system," said Mohamad Muthhar Shorbaji, a member of the SNC, in a statement on social media.

"Syria won't become a real state except by parliamentary and presidential elections that are within the framework of a political settlement according to U.N. resolution 2254," he said, referring to a resolution unanimously passed by the U.N. Security Council in 2015 calling for a ceasefire.

In the Sweida region, a stronghold of Syria's minority Druze community where protests against Assad have kept up since last August, dozens of demonstrators held a protest calling for a boycott.

"No to the puppets council," read a poster carried by a female activist.

Protesters there took to the streets on several highways to prevent the arrival of  ballot boxes, activists closed a polling station in one town and residents said most eligible voters heeded a call by local elders to boycott the vote.

(Reporting by Kindah Makieh and Firas Makdesi in Damascus and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Writing by Timour Azhari; Editing by Peter Graff)