Thousands of Syrians headed to polling stations early Wednesday to vote in a presidential election set to end a strong message to the West.
The vote is the second presidential election since the country’s conflict began 10 years ago.
Beside President Bashar Al-Assad, two other candidates are running for the country’s top post.
They are little known figures, Abdullah Salloum Abdullah and Mahmoud Ahmad Marie. But competition with Assad is largely seen as symbolic in a country where elections are.
Starting at 7 a.m., thousands began arriving at polling stations in Damascus, thronging streets festooned with giant posters of Assad and banners praising his rule.
“We choose the future. We choose Bashar Assad,” read one of thousands of banners raised in the capital Damascus.
“I am here to vote because it is a national duty to choose a president who will lead us in the coming period,” said civil servant Muhannad Helou, 38, who said he voted for Assad.
Al-Assad is expected to win another term in office considering his overwhelming popularity across the country.
Some parts of Syria won’t participate in the vote since they’re currently occupied by American and Turkish forces.
Nevertheless, these elections still send a strong message to the West since they show that Syria has succeeded in its decade-long struggle against the hybrid war of terror that’s been waged against it, wrote Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst.
“In reality, the war was always about geopolitics. The Syrian Arab Republic has proudly practiced an independent foreign policy for decades, which threatened US interests in the region. It also sits astride prospectively attractive energy routes, not to mention that it never signed a peace treaty with Israel, nor even recognizes its legitimacy,” he wrote in an article published by Beijing-based CGTN news service.
Source: Agencies and Websites
