Campaigning wraps up for Syria vote set to sweep Assad back to power

DAMASCUS — Syria entered its final day of campaigning on Sunday for the June 3 presidential election expected to return Bashar Assad to power, a vote the opposition brands a “parody of democracy”.

With swathes of the country out of government control, voting will only take place in regime-held territory, far from where Assad’s forces are battling the rebels who seek to topple him.

The fragmented opposition, and their Western and Arab allies, are set to watch powerlessly as the ballot returns Assad to power for a third, seven-year term at a time when the army is making advances on the battlefield.

Assad’s opponents have dubbed the vote a “parody of democracy” and the “blood election”, as the toll from the civil war has reached 162,000, according to a monitoring group.

The rebels have urged Syrians to boycott the vote in which Assad’s sole competitors, MP Maher Al Hajjar, and businessman Hassan Al Nouri — are little known and seen as token rivals.

On Sunday the ruling Baath Party, which has dominated Syria for more than half a century, called for people to reelect Assad.

The president was chosen by referendum in 2000 following the death of his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, who had ruled over Syria for nearly 30 years.

By choosing Assad, Syrians would be voting “not only for a president of the republic but for a leader... who faces the war... for the iconic leader Bashar Assad who has stayed at the side of his people in all corners of the homeland,” the ruling party said in a statement.

In an apparent bid to shore up the support of Sunni Muslims for Assad, state television gave a live broadcast of a meeting of Sunni clerics who also urged voters to cast their ballots for Assad.

The president is from the minority Alawite community while most of the rebels fighting to topple him come from Syria’s majority Sunni Muslim community.

On Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant killed a 102-year-old man and four other members of his Alawite community in Hama province.

“Some members of the family were burned alive, others killed in their sleep,” said the Britain-based monitoring group.

It also reported that regime aircraft pressed an offensive on the northern city of Aleppo, dropping barrel bombs on rebel areas that left many people wounded and set ablaze a house.

Early show of force 

With campaigning drawing to a close, the streets of Damascus were plastered with posters glorifying Assad.

He was seen in casual wear, fatigues or dress uniform with a chest covered in medal ribbons, in pictures that dwarfed those of his rivals.

The poll is aimed at bolstering Assad’s position as he seeks to win at all costs the war he is fighting against the exiled opposition and fragmented rebels weakened by infighting between rival jihadists.

Peaceful protests calling for political change that started in March 2011 have been transformed into a full-blown civil war across the country after a brutal regime crackdown on demonstrators.

Damascus never recognised the protest movement, referring to protesters as “armed terrorists” working to serve a “foreign plot”.

Al Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of the ruling party, insisted on Sunday that Syrians will vote “to show that the will of the people is stronger than all the dreams and desires of the plotters”.

The regime pulled off an early show of force on Wednesday when thousands of expatriates and refugees living abroad turned out for an early vote in 43 embassies in their host countries.

More than 95 per cent of those registered to vote cast their ballots, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

However, Syrians who entered countries illegally were not allowed to take part and only 200,000 of some three million refugees were on electoral lists abroad.

Refugees in Turkey and Lebanon protested against the election and claimed the regime bussed voters from Damascus to cast their ballots in neighbouring countries, and put pressure on others to vote.

France, Germany and Belgium forbade the election from taking place on their territory, as did the United Arab Emirates, according to Damascus.