Assad will win and extend his grip on Syria for 4th term

[Anthea]

Syria’s presidential election

The United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany and Italy released a joint statement late on Tuesday condemning Syria’s presidential election scheduled for Wednesday, claiming it will “neither be free nor fair.”

“We support the voices of all Syrians, including civil society organisations and the Syrian opposition, who have condemned the electoral process as illegitimate,” read the joint statement.

The election, the first since 2014, has been denounced by Kurdish political parties and the pro-Turkey opposition in Syria. Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria (Rojava) have said polling will not be held in areas under their control.

“As outlined in the resolution [2254] , free and fair elections should be convened under UN supervision to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability. For an election to be credible, all Syrians should be allowed to participate, including internally displaced Syrians, refugees, and members of the diaspora, in a safe and neutral environment,” said the five Western countries.

“Without these elements, this fraudulent election does not represent any progress towards a political settlement.”

President Bashar al-Assad, who has ruled the country for 21 years, is widely expected to secure his fourth term as president. Wednesday’s election will be the second since the civil war started in the country in 2011.

Polling will only take place in areas controlled by Damascus. Assad has not controlled most of the northeast and northwest since 2011.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/25052021

[Anthea]

Assad set to win

Polling stations opened Wednesday across Syria for an election where few doubt that Bashar al-Assad will extend his grip on power for a fourth term, in a war-battered country mired in economic crisis

The controversial vote is the second election since the start of a decade-long conflict, that has killed more than 388,000 people and displaced half the pre-war population.

Huge election posters glorifying Assad have mushroomed across the two-thirds of the country under government rule.

With opponents abroad barred from running and no voting in the swathes of territory outside his control, Assad faces just two virtually unknown challengers.

The official news agency SANA declared voting had started as planned at 7:00 am (0400 GMT) and state television showed long queues forming in several parts of the country.

Syrians can cast their ballots in more than 12,000 polling centres, and results are expected to be announced by Friday evening, 48 hours after voting closes.

The election takes place amid the lowest levels of violence since 2011 -- but with an economy in free-fall.

More than 80 percent of the population live below the poverty line, and the Syrian pound has plunged in value against the dollar, with inflation skyrocketing.

Assad's campaign slogan, "Hope through work", evokes the colossal reconstruction needed to rebuild the country, requiring billions in funding.

- 'Tolerated opposition' -

Assad, a 55-year-old ophthalmologist by training, was first elected by referendum in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, who had ruled Syria for 30 years.

He faces former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Merhi, a member of the so-called "tolerated opposition", long described by exiled opposition leaders as an extension of the regime.

Assad has refrained from holding campaign media events and interviews.

But he issued a general amnesty for thousands of prisoners earlier this month, on top of a series of decrees that aim to improve economic conditions.

Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Khaled al-Rahmoun on Tuesday said that 18 million Syrians at home and abroad were officially eligible to vote.

But the actual number of voters will likely be smaller, with wide swathes of Syria outside Assad's control, and with many refugees excluded.

Last week, thousands of Syrian refugees and expatriates cast an early ballot in the embassies of their host countries.

But Syrians who fled the country illegally -- and so who could not show an exit stamp in their passport -- were barred from voting.

Several countries that oppose Assad blocked the vote altogether, including Turkey and Germany, which host large Syrian refugee populations.

- 'Farce' -

The US and the European Union said Tuesday the elections was "neither free nor fair," and Syria's fragmented opposition has called the polls a "farce".

But they will watch powerless as Assad prepares to renew his grip on power.

In Syria's rebel-held northwest, home to three million people, opposition activists on Tuesday distributed mock campaign posters ridiculing Assad in protest.

Kurdish authorities in the northeast, who have carved out a semi-autonomous zone, said they are "not concerned" with the election.

In the last multi-candidate poll in 2014, Assad took 88 percent of the vote.

It was Syria's first election in nearly 50 years, with Assad and his father Hafez renewing their mandates in successive referendums.

It took place as the war raged, with the air force bombarding rebel areas in Aleppo and fierce fighting in Hama, Damascus, Idlib and Daraa.

This time around, the frontlines are relatively quiet.

"Assad is running the risk of being the only certainty in a country in ruins," said a European diplomat following Syrian affairs.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/26052021

[Anthea]

Bashar al-Assad wins fourth term in office

As expected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a fourth term in office with 95.1% of the votes

Head of parliament Hammouda Sabbagh announced the results at a news conference on Thursday, saying voter turnout was around 78%, with more than 14 million Syrians taking part.

Assad was running against two obscure candidates, former deputy Cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, head of a small, officially sanctioned opposition party.

Marei got 3.3% of the vote, while Saloum received 1.5%, Sabbagh said.

The Foreign Ministers of the United States, Germany, Britain, France and Italy, urged the international community to reject the elections. The statement said: "We call on the international community to firmly reject the attempt to gain legitimacy by the Syrian president without stopping the gross human rights violations or participating in a meaningful way in the political process facilitated by the UN to end the conflict," the statement said.

Western ministers noted that these elections were "neither free nor fair."

The Syrian Democratic Council (MSD) said that they would not participate in the Syrian presidential elections scheduled to be held on 26 May.

The MSD said: "The Syrian Democratic Council has repeatedly announced that it is not concerned with any elections that do not achieve the goals of the Syrians in their lives, rights and political presence, and will not be a facilitator of any electoral procedure that violates the meaning of the UN Resolution 2254."

[Anthea]

Bashar al-Assad sworn in for 4th term

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was sworn in Saturday for a fourth seven-year term in the war-torn country, pledging to overcome the impact of Western economic sanctions and retake territory still out of his control after 10 years of fighting

Even as the swearing-in ceremony was held at the presidential palace, attended by clergymen, lawmakers, political figures, army officers and other supporters, activists reported that government shelling in the last rebel enclave in the northwest killed at least six people, including three children and their grandmother.

Assad’s re-election in May in a landslide was never in doubt. It was described by the West and Syria’s opposition as illegitimate and a sham.

In power since 2000, his new term starts with a country still devastated by war and sliding deeper into a worsening economic crisis. Accused by European and the US governments for most of the war’s atrocities, Assad has faced widening sanctions that also target his close aides and state institutions.

Assad said in his inaugural speech that all his concerns are about “liberating the land and confronting the economic and social ramifications of the war.”

“Making things better is possible, certainly possible,” he said, speaking for over an hour. “War and siege didn’t close the doors completely ... we can get through them. We just have to know how to.”

The UN estimates that more than 80 percent of Syrians live under the poverty line. The Syrian currency has been losing value and basic services and resources are scarce or offered at exorbitant parallel market prices. Fighting has largely subsided, but parts of Syria remain out of government-control and foreign troops and militias are deployed in different parts of the country.

Assad claimed that Syrian money stuck in Lebanese banks — which he estimated at between $40-60 billion — was a bigger challenge than the sanctions. Lebanon is facing its own economic crisis. That deprives Syria of funds, he said, and pressures the Syrian pound, now trading at around 3,000 to the dollar, compared to 47 pounds to the dollar at the start of the war.

Assad is supported by Iran and Russia, which sent troops and assistance that have propped him up throughout the war. UN-led talks to end the conflict have failed to make any progress.

Buoyed by military victories, Assad called on Syrians in exile to return home, saying they were “misled by the illusion” of a rebellion against his rule.

After the swearing-in, Assad met with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who arrived in Damascus earlier Saturday, the most senior Chinese official to visit Damascus in years. Assad thanked China for its support.

Nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population is either displaced or living in neighboring countries or Europe as refugees. The war has left nearly half a million killed, tens of thousands missing and devastated the infrastructure.

The conflict that began in 2011 started after the government cracked down on peaceful protests, turning the opposition against the decades-long rule of the Assad family into an armed rebellion. Assad took over in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, who seized power in 1970 in a bloodless military coup.

The May election — the second during the 10-year civil war — had no independent monitors. Assad won 95.1 percent of the vote with symbolic competition from two candidates.

US and European officials said the vote violated UN resolutions in place to resolve the conflict and was unrepresentative of all Syrians.

Despite a cease-fire deal in place since March 2020, government shells on Saturday targeted the northwestern village of Serjeh in Idlib province, according to rescue workers and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor with activists on the ground. Among the six killed was also a volunteer with the White Helmets, the civil defense in opposition areas.

Violence has been rising in recent weeks in the enclave as government troops edge toward restoring control of the territory, home to nearly 4 million people.

The truce was negotiated between Turkey, which supports Syria’s opposition and has troops deployed in the area, and Russia, the Syrian government’s main backer. At the time, it halted a crushing Russian-backed government air and ground campaign aimed at retaking the region.

UNICEF said 512 children were verified killed in fighting in Syria last year, the majority in the northwest where there are 1.7 million vulnerable children, many of whom have fled violence several times.

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