An electoral official helps a Syrian man to vote at a polling station in Damascus on 26 February 2012. (Photo : AFP/Louai Beshara)

Syrian state television aired live footage from a number of polling stations around the country and reported that "large number of voters" had turned out.

The new text ends the legal basis for the five-decade stranglehold on power of the ruling Baath party but leaves President Bashar Assad in his position.

The opposition says the changes are entirely cosmetic and has called on its supporters to boycott the poll.

Proponents of the regime argue this is a first step toward a long process of reform.

Elsewhere clashes have continued, with the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying that over 30 people have died.

As polling was under way, a Britain-based watchdog reported new violence around the country that left at least 17 civilians and 16 security force personnel dead.

In the central city of Homs – under attack by regime forces for more than three weeks – shelling resumed of the rebel district of Baba Amr, dashing Red Cross hopes of a lull to allow the evacuation of two wounded Western journalists.

France’s Interior Minister Claude Gueant warned it was "medically urgent" to get wounded French reporter Edith Bouvier out of the besieged district.

The Red Cross said the evacuation will most likely take place Monday.

Al-Akhbar
26 February, 2012.