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Syrian opposition condemned Monday’s announcement of the presidential election to be held on June 3rd, expected to keep President Bashar Assad in power despite the several thousand deaths in anti-regime revolts since 2011. Speaker of the Parliament Mohammed al-Lahham had announced that the election would be held on June 3 and that Syrians living outside the country can vote on May 28. He added that the voting would be “free and fair… and under full judicial supervision”.
Ahmad Jarba, leader of the office of opposition National Coalition, said “the Assad regime’s announcement today that a ‘presidential election’ would be held in June should be treated as a farce and be rejected by the international community. With vast parts of Syria completely destroyed by Assad’s air force, army and militias over the last three years, and with a third of Syria’s population displaced internally or in refugee camps in the region, there is no electorate in Syria in a condition to exercise its right to vote”.
Assad had become President after the death of his father Hafez in 2000. Assad’s current term ends on July 17; he is widely expected to run for, and win, another seven-year term. New election rules in Syria require candidates to live the country for the last decade, effectively stopping key opposition members in exile from running.
The Syrian civil war in now into its third year, already accounting for 150,000 deaths and exodus of more than half of the population. The conflict started out as a peaceful Arab Spring-inspired movement seeking democratic reform, but became a civil war after the regime launched a huge crackdown on the dissenters.
Exiled Coalition member Samir Nashar, currently in Turkey, said that the election is “a mere continuation of (Syria’s) past. For 50 years, from 1963 (when the ruling Baath party came to power) to date, there have been no transparent elections. I don’t think that anyone would believe that these elections can really express the will of the Syrian people, considering all this destruction and forced displacement… What elections are we talking about? What about democracy?”
