Syria’s parliament, the People’s Assembly, shuttered by the fall of the Assad regime, is at last being reopened. Elections of a sort, already delayed once, took place in most of Syria’s regions on 5 October. A few observers feared violence might mar meetings of the local electoral colleges – the basic unit of these elections, whose members chose representatives among themselves. Some electoral college members across the country hinted at threats they had received, much of it loose talk on social media. Others claimed intimidation by supporters of the former regime, many of whom were not eligible to stand because of their former ties. This kind of thing is a constant worry in a country where there are so many weapons in private hands.

In the first week of October alone, monitors said that there were 14 attacks linked to the Islamic State (ISIS), although 12 of those 14 took place in the northeast of Syria. This is the area dominated by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), where no elections took place. The region’s Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) released a statement saying that the parliamentary elections were not free, fair or democratic – hence the boycott.

Mercifully, there was no widespread violence: no bombings, no kidnappings. No electoral college members were shot at, so far as we know. If there were more specific intimidatory threats thrown around at particular college members or their families, they have yet to surface.

Instead, order largely prevailed. The electoral colleges met and chose their delegations. Very soon, all will congregate in Damascus and inaugurate a new parliament, the first of a new Syria freed from the tyranny of the Assad family.

The election is without doubt a success for the new interim government and its transitional arrangements. Critics of the elections had been divided on whether they were dangerous and impractical to hold with the Syrian state as shattered as it is, or if more effort could have been made to hold elections on the basis of universal suffrage rather than ad-hoc assemblies. The former critics have been proved wrong; it was possible to hold elections on the terms the new government set out. The latter critics may prove prescient – although it’s surely too early to say.

Others note that the majority of elected members are Sunni, Arab and male. In part, this is because Sunnis and Arabs are the majority in Syria. It would have been strange if this result had been different. National minorities still got some representation. In Afrin, which was forcibly taken off the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) some years ago, all of the three chosen candidates were Kurdish. Although, they are allegedly associated (parties being inadmissible in this election) with a rival political group to the SDF.

The Syrian president retains the ability to appoint 90 seats to the parliament; he will, many expect, use this to represent some groups that have not fared well in the electoral colleges. If he does so, this will counteract some of the criticism from abroad that is already gathering, and assuage some complaints from domestic minorities who believe any legislature of any sort is apt to be a stitch up that leads to a tyranny of the majority.

For the past ten months, the interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been testing the capacities of presidential authority. Since his official appointment in January, al-Sharaa has been learning to wield power. He abolished the office of prime minister, which was last held in interim by a loyalist who headed the Salvation Government in Idlib, the area controlled by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham before the fall of the Assad regime last year. That office did not appear to meet requirements. New ministers have been appointed, some of them technocrats with immense experience; others are relative novices or former leaders of armed groups whose capacity to organise on state lines is still to be tested.

Much power in Damascus has accumulated in the hands of the foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, and the president’s brother, Maher al-Sharaa, who now serves as secretary-general for the presidency. Indeed, some have called Maher al-Sharaa prime minister in all but name.

Maher al-Sharaa is in his early fifties, but many of the new office-holders are young men in their twenties and thirties, with the oldest in their early forties. They’re reputed to push themselves hard: anecdotes are not difficult to find of government by WhatsApp, with ministers and their advisors replying to messages and issuing instructions at all hours.

Nonetheless, it seems there are some things you cannot do without a parliament – without the legitimacy such a body can give, and without the burdens it can in theory take off other shoulders.

When Ahmed al-Sharaa was in New York two weeks ago to address the United Nations, he had a public conversation with David Petraeus, the retired American general who commanded US forces in Iraq when al-Sharaa was in American prisons, detained as a fighter for al-Qaeda. Among other things, Petraeus asked al-Sharaa about whether he was getting enough time to rest, to think, to sleep, and whether he was trying to do too much of the ruling of his country alone and not sparing his body or his mind. We all worry about you, the former CIA director told the Syrian president.

There is much to be done. The Syrian state is in pieces. Hopelessly corrupt and incompetent when the machinery of the last regime was in force, the bureaucracy now faces many almost intractable problems all at once.

Much of Syria is in ruins. Fourteen years of war destroyed up to a third of the country’s housing stock. Even in Damascus, latterly less touched by a war which was fought at the country’s northern and eastern edges, has areas of devastation. Scars are visible from old regime and Russian, and now Israeli, bombing. The suburbs flattened by the former regime’s air force and artillery still haven’t recovered a decade on from the heaviest fighting.

A million Syrians have returned to the country since the fall of the Assad regime, the new government claims. All of those people will have to be housed. They will have to find work. They will have to be fed and provided with electricity.

Then there are problems of security. In particular, the ISIS threat remains. Security cooperation with the United States is possible, and President al-Sharaa met the American Central Command (CENTCOM) commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, in Damascus in September. Indeed, many observers have been surprised by the speed and depth of cooperation between the United States and the new Syria. ISIS is a threat to all. The Assad regime nurtured ISIS more than it fought the group; so it is refreshing, many American officials believe, to have someone in power in Damascus who actually wants the Islamic State beaten or held back.

All across Syria, practical and administrative problems confront any force that tries to rebuild the country: an awful lot of building needs to be done; the lights must be kept on; regime-rotten government departments need purging and deep, thorough reform; armed groups across the country must be folded into the ministry of defence, made to follow new rules of engagement and law, and slowly disarmed; and the law must be made, kept and enforced with a judiciousness and determination that the previous regime lacked.

The old People’s Assembly was a ridiculous institution. Its members were sycophants whose major talent appeared to be applauding the former president. We don’t yet know whether this parliament – in office theoretically for only 30 months, before another electoral process of a kind will be necessary – will be seat-fillers like their predecessors. Those who want the best for Syria hope not.

Those who want the best for Syria believe, too, that if this election has proven anything, it is that the country is safe enough and capable enough to run a proper election, with universal suffrage, for both the People’s Assembly and the presidency. Syrians and international observers will hope that it is just a matter of time before these elections, too, can be held, and the true promise of a democratic Syria can be fulfilled.