politics

1. Syrians head to polls set to extend
Assad’s rule
June 3, 2014 Updated: June 3, 2014 16:06:00
DAMASCUS // Syrians voted on Tuesday in an election expected to deliver an overwhelming
victory to President Bashar Al Assad.
The controversial election comes in the midst of a three-year civil war that has fractured the
country and killed more than 160,000 people.
Mr Assad’s opponents – including rebel fighters, the political opposition in exile, Western
powers and Gulf Arabs – have dismissed the election as a charade, saying no credible vote
can be held in a country where wide swathes of territory are outside state control and millions
of people have been displaced.
Insurgents battling to overthrow Mr Assad stepped up attacks in government-controlled areas
in the build-up to the election, seeking to disrupt the vote.
Polling stations opened at 7 am local time in parts of Syria where Mr Assad continues to rule
and state television broadcast footage of people queuing to cast their votes in several cities.
“We hope for security and stability,” said Hussam Al Din, an Arabic teacher who was the first
person to vote at a polling station at a Damascus secondary school.
Asked who would win, he responded: “God willing, President Bashar Al Assad.”
Mr Assad is running against two relatively unknown challengers who were approved by a
parliament packed with his supporters, the first time in half a century that Syrians have been
offered any choice of candidates.
The last seven presidential votes were referendums to approve Mr Assad or his father, Hafez
Al Assad.
His father never scored less than 99 per cent, while his son got 97.6 percent seven years
ago.
Neither of Mr Assad’s rivals, former minister Hassan Al Nouri or parliamentarian Maher Hajjar,
is expected to make major inroads into those levels of support.

2. Syrian officials have predicted a big turnout and said that a high level of participation would be
as significant as the result itself.
“The size of the turnout is a political message,” information minister Omran Zoabi said on
Monday.
“The armed terrorist groups have increased their threats because they fear (a high level of)
participation,” he said referring to anti-regime rebels.
“If these terrorist groups had any popularity it would be enough to ensure the failure of the
election,” he said.
“But they realise they have no popularity, so they want to affect the level of participation so
they can say the turnout was low.”
Tens of thousands of Syrian expatriates and refugees cast their ballots last week in an early
round of voting, although the number was just a fraction of the nearly 3 million refugees and
other Syrians living abroad.
The election comes three years after protests first broke out in Syria, calling for democratic
reform in a country dominated since 1970 by the Assad family. Authorities responded with
force and the uprising has since descended into civil war.
Mr Assad’s forces, backed by allies including Iran and Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah,
have consolidated their control in central Syria but the insurgents and foreign jihadi fighters
hold broad expanses of the north and east.
Peace talks in Geneva between the government and the opposition National Coalition, which
the opposition said must be based on the principle of Mr Assad stepping aside in favour of a
transitional government, collapsed in February.
Since then Mr Assad’s forces and Hezbollah fighters have seized back control of former rebel
strongholds on the Lebanese border, cutting off supply lines for weapons and fighters, and
the last rebels have retreated from the centre of the city of Homs.
The withdrawal from Homs has focused attention on the northern city of Aleppo, formerly
Syria’s commercial hub, where fighting has escalated in the last few weeks.
Rebel rocket fire on government-controlled areas of Aleppo killed 50 people over the
weekend, while barrel bombs dropped by army helicopters on rebel-held areas of Aleppo
have killed nearly 2,000 people this year, a monitoring group said.
State media said on Monday that a car bomb killed at least 10 people in Homs province.
* Reuters