Elections in Syria: dictator Bashar al Assad seeks fourth term amid international rejection

More than 12,100 polling stations opened today in areas controlled by the government of Syria for a presidential elections in which the current leader, Bashar al Assad, is expected to be re-elected, who voted in the middle of the morning in a center of the Duma, outside Damascus.

The residents of Douma are participating in a presidential election for the first time since 2011, because until 2018 the area was controlled by armed rebel groups.

From the Duma, which has not yet been rebuilt after years of conflict and bombing and which is only accessible with a special permit, the Syrian president called on the population to return home.

Likewise, he felt that today’s influx into polling stations is a “sufficient” response to criticism of “Western countries with colonial history”.

The opposition in exile and a series of countries like France and the United States have dismissed the election nomination as “a sham” with a predetermined winner and for not being part of the UN-sponsored process since 2015 for a solution politics in Syria.

In the capital, the elections are taking place amid a strong deployment of the police, who are not present in the polling stations but are present on the roads and public places to guarantee movement.

In accordance with official guidelines, the polling center set up at Damascus University opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (4:00 GMT) for hundreds of students and institution workers lining up to cast their ballots. , according to Efe.

For many of these young people, it is the first time that they can exercise their right to vote after reaching the age of majority, as is the case of the engineering student Waad, who at 20 expressed to Efe from the ranks his illusion to be able by design “to choose who will rule the country”.

“No one will be able to choose the future for us, it is we who determine what we want and no one other than the Syrian voter has the right to choose how we will build our country,” said the young man. 21 years old. Medical student in Haitham.

These elections are followed by the current Syrian president, the former deputy minister of parliamentary affairs, Abdulá Salloum Abdulá, and the leader of the internal opposition tolerated in Syria, Mahmud Marai.

In the last elections of 2014, when for the first time in half a century more than one candidate ran for office after amending the Constitution following protests that began in 2011, Al Assad gathered 88 , 7% of the votes.

Reconstruction?

For his new seven-year term, in a country with a broken economy and dilapidated infrastructure, Bashar Al Assad presents himself as the man of reconstruction, having chained military battles with the support of Russia and Iran , his loyal allies.

Propelled to power in 2000, Asad replaced his father Hafez, who died after 30 years in power with an iron fist.

The current president did not organize electoral rallies or give interviews to the press. With the election, the head of state decreed an amnesty for thousands of prisoners.

According to the archives, the country officially has just under 18 million voters.

But with the country’s fragmentation through war and the exile of millions of people, the number of voters will actually be lower.

In a war-polarized Syria, the Kurdish autonomous regions of the northeast will ignore the elections, as will the last jihadist and rebel stronghold of Idlib (northwest), where some three million people live.

The 2021 election in Syria, where fighting has slowed, is taking place amid an economic quagmire, with historic currency depreciation, rampant inflation and more than 80% of the population living in poverty, according to the UN.

(with information from EFE and AFP)

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