Assad votes in former rebel town
Published: 09:05 PM,May 26,2021 | EDITED : 07:05 PM,May 26,2021
President Bashar al Assad and his wife Asma greet supporters after casting their votes in the country's presidential elections at a polling station, in Douma, on Wednesday. — Reuters
AMMAN: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad voted on Wednesday in an election certain to extend his rule over a country ruined by war, casting his ballot in the former rebel stronghold of Douma where a suspected chemical weapons attack in 2018 prompted Western air strikes.
The government says the election shows Syria is functioning normally despite the decade-old conflict. The fighting has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million people - about half the country's population - from their homes.
'Syria is not what they were trying to market, one city against the other and sect against the other or civil war. Today we are proving from Douma that the Syrian people are one,' Assad said after voting.
However, in the southern city of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against Assad in 2011 and an opposition bastion until rebels there surrendered three years ago, local leaders called for a strike.
The election went ahead despite a UN-led peace process that had called for polls under international supervision that would help pave the way for a new constitution and a political settlement.
Dismissed as fraudulent by his enemies, it is set to deliver Assad seven more years in power and extend his family's rule to nearly six decades. His father Hafez al-Assad led Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000.
The opposition is boycotting the vote and says Assad's presidential rivals are deliberately low-key: former deputy cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, head of a small, officially sanctioned opposition party.
Addressing his critics, Assad said Syrians had made their feelings clear by coming out in large numbers. 'The value of your opinions is zero,' he said.
At Damascus University's Faculty of Arts, hundreds of students lined up to vote, with several buses parked outside.
'With our blood and soul we sacrifice our lives for you Bashar,' groups of them chanted before the polls opened, in scenes repeated across the 70% of Syria now under government control.
'We came to elect president Bashar al-Assad...without him Syria would not be Syria,' said Amal, a nursing student, who declined to give a second name for fear of reprisals.
Officials said privately that authorities had organised large rallies in recent days to encourage voting and the security apparatus that underpins Assad's Alawite minority-dominated rule had instructed state employees to vote.
'We have been told we have to go to the polls or bear responsibility for not voting,' said Jafaar, a government employee in Latakia who gave his first name only, also fearing reprisals.
The government says the election shows Syria is functioning normally despite the decade-old conflict. The fighting has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million people - about half the country's population - from their homes.
'Syria is not what they were trying to market, one city against the other and sect against the other or civil war. Today we are proving from Douma that the Syrian people are one,' Assad said after voting.
However, in the southern city of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against Assad in 2011 and an opposition bastion until rebels there surrendered three years ago, local leaders called for a strike.
The election went ahead despite a UN-led peace process that had called for polls under international supervision that would help pave the way for a new constitution and a political settlement.
Dismissed as fraudulent by his enemies, it is set to deliver Assad seven more years in power and extend his family's rule to nearly six decades. His father Hafez al-Assad led Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000.
The opposition is boycotting the vote and says Assad's presidential rivals are deliberately low-key: former deputy cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, head of a small, officially sanctioned opposition party.
Addressing his critics, Assad said Syrians had made their feelings clear by coming out in large numbers. 'The value of your opinions is zero,' he said.
At Damascus University's Faculty of Arts, hundreds of students lined up to vote, with several buses parked outside.
'With our blood and soul we sacrifice our lives for you Bashar,' groups of them chanted before the polls opened, in scenes repeated across the 70% of Syria now under government control.
'We came to elect president Bashar al-Assad...without him Syria would not be Syria,' said Amal, a nursing student, who declined to give a second name for fear of reprisals.
Officials said privately that authorities had organised large rallies in recent days to encourage voting and the security apparatus that underpins Assad's Alawite minority-dominated rule had instructed state employees to vote.
'We have been told we have to go to the polls or bear responsibility for not voting,' said Jafaar, a government employee in Latakia who gave his first name only, also fearing reprisals.