Assad Looks Certain to Win Presidential Election
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is widely expected to claim an overwhelming victory in yesterday’s poll, the country’s first multi-candidate election in more than 40 years.
“State television showed long queues of people waiting to vote at polling stations in areas under state control, as well as crowds waving flags and portraits of the president,” Reuters reports. “Assad, looking relaxed and wearing a dark blue suit and light blue tie, voted at a central Damascus polling station with his wife, Asma.
Many Syrians crave stability after three years of war, a major factor in voter turnout.
“We hope for security and stability,” Hussam al-Din al Aws, an Arabic teacher who was the first person to vote at a Damascus polling station, told the wire. “God willing, President Bashar al-Assad” will win.
Despite fears of election day attacks by opposition groups, rebel fighters from the Islamic Front and its allies said they would not to target civilians at polling stations and urged other rebels to follow suit.
AFP reports that Assad and his wife, Asma, made a rare public appearance on election day, appearing happy and relaxed on state television as they arrived at a polling station in the downtown Damascus neighborhood of Maliki.
“Portrayed as a criminal by the opposition, Assad is keen to show himself as a man of the people,” it says. “He posed for a selfie along with a group of youths at the polling station where he voted. The photograph then made the rounds on Twitter and Facebook.”
Meanwhile, Liz Sly of the Washington Post writes that Iran, one of Assad’s chief allies, is already trumpeting his near-certain reelection as a defeat for the U.S.
“Top Iranian officials in recent days have issued a flurry of declarations celebrating not only the affirmation of Assad’s continued hold on power that the election represents but also Iran’s role in sustaining him,” she reports from Beirut. The U.S. has repeatedly dismissed Syria’s election as a “parody,” largely because the outcome is guaranteed by Assad’s own rules.
“There are no serious contenders challenging Assad’s bid to be reelected for a third seven-year term in office, there will be no independent observers, and many parts of the country are either controlled by rebels or engulfed in fighting. Iran, however, dispatched a team of monitors Monday to observe the voting, part of an extensive effort to mirror failed U.S. policies in Syria with initiatives asserting ownership of the crisis.”
And Anne Barnard of the New York Times discusses the government’s effort to boost turnout, where she says voters were hustled to polls under the watchful eyes of government officials.
In Damascus, “buses ferried government workers from their offices to cast ballots. Security checkpoints blocked some people from leaving neighborhoods if they did not have inked fingers proving they had taken part. And a few citizens pronounced themselves so enthusiastic that they had voted several times.”
Assad, she writes, “has made clear that he will see victory as a validation of his rule and of his crackdown on the three-year insurgency. He is also sending a message that he is confident of winning the war and is unlikely to exit soon, embarrassing the United States and other international powers that have called for his ouster and sought to broker a substantive political
transition.”