Syria elections a ‘farce’: NATO head
BRUSSELS – NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen dismissed presidential elections in Syria as a “farce” on Tuesday, saying they did not meet international standards.
“The Syrian presidential election is a farce,” Rasmussen said as he went into a NATO defense ministers meeting.
The vote “does not fulfill international standards for free, fair and transparent elections and I am sure no (NATO) ally will recognize the outcome of these so-called elections,” he said.
President Bashar Al-Assad is expected to win a crushing victory over two little known challengers in the elections which the Syrian opposition have also condemned as a “farce.”
There was no voting in the roughly 60 percent of the country outside the control of Assad’s government, which includes large areas of second city Aleppo.
The latest figures put the number of dead in the Syrian conflict at more than 160,000, with no end seemingly in sight.
The United Nations has warned that the election will only complicate efforts to relaunch peace talks after two rounds of abortive negotiations in Switzerland earlier this year.
The exiled opposition has made Assad’s departure from power a precondition for any negotiated settlement and his re-election for a new seven-year term is likely to scupper any hope of getting them back to the negotiating table any time soon.
“Dictators are not elected, they hold power by force and fear – the only motivations that Syrians have to show up for this charade,” opposition chief Ahmed Jarba wrote in the Washington Post.
Assad is facing two little-known challengers and is expected to win a crushing victory despite the three-year-old civil war which the United Nations has warned is likely to drag on even longer as a result of the election.
There was no voting in the roughly 60 percent of the country outside the control of Assad’s government, which includes large areas of second city Aleppo.
But polling was held in the heart of third city Homs, in ruins after rebel forces pulled out early last month following a devastating two-year siege in a boost for the president whose family has held power in Syria for more than 40 years.
Assad and his British-born wife Asma voted in central Damascus and state television aired footage of them as they cast their ballots, the president wearing a dark blue suit, the first lady a white blouse, a black business skirt and stiletto heels.
The capital is firmly under the government’s control but comes under periodic rebel bombardment from the suburbs, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that several neighbourhoods came under fire on Tuesday.
None of the voters questioned by AFP said they had voted for the challengers.
Nadia Hazim said she would “vote for the president — of course”. In the central city of Homs, security forces deployed in strength a day after a truck bomb killed 10 people in the nearby countryside.
Foreign governments allied to Assad – Iran, North Korea and Russia – sent observers to monitor the election, but Western governments have dubbed it a mockery of democracy. – Agencies