Syrian Parliamentary Elections

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Despite endless US-led war on Syria and its people, 1,656 candidates, including around 200 women, are vying for 250 seats in Sunday parliamentary elections.

Nearly 7,300 polling stations are accommodating voters in all provinces.

Candidates from Bashar al-Assad's National Progressive Front are favored to win majority control.

Sunday's legislative election is the third since the Obama regime launched preemptive war on the country in March 2011 — using ISIS and other jihadists as proxy troops, supported by Pentagon-led terror-bombing.

Most parts of the country are liberated after over nine years of endless war that remains ongoing, largely in Idlib province, the last terrorist stronghold.

On Saturday, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported two terrorist-caused explosions in Damascus.

Two improvised explosive devices were planted at the Anas Bin Malek mosque in the Nahr Eshe neighborhood part of the city.

One man was reported killed, another injured, the incidents clearly attempting to intimidate voters ahead of polls opening on Sunday.

Voting is scheduled from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, polling stations to remain open as long as Syrians are queued to cast ballots.

US, NATO, and Turkish-supported terrorists said they won't allow voting in areas they control.

Nor is it possible in northern and southern territory that's illegally occupied by Pentagon forces and CIA operatives — including repressive refugee concentration camps where tens of thousands of civilians are held captive as human shields.

Legislative elections were initially scheduled for April, delayed because of COVID-19 outbreaks that remain a serious issue of concern, especially because parts of the country remain an active war theater.

Expressing support for Syria's legitimate government and its electoral process, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following:

"We consider it is important that all legislative and executive institutions in Syria work normally in order to preserve the stability of the country, so it is necessary to run these elections," adding:

"We generally evaluate the situation on the ground as tense, and the most difficult situation is in areas which are out of the control of the Syrian government, as in Idlib and the Euphrates area."

She warned that US forces trained jihadists to carry out disruptive sabotage, assassinations, and other hostile actions against Syria and its people.

According to SANA on Sunday, Judicial Sub-Committee for Elections chairman Hussam Eddin Rahmoun said required measures are in place to assure voting proceeds as smoothly as possible.

As expected, anti-Syria propaganda demeaned the country's electoral process — part of war on the republic by other means along with US-led hot war.

The NYT published an anti-Assad AP piece, falsely claiming Sunday's "vote will produce a rubber-stamp" parliament, adding:

Parliamentary elections were last held in April 2016 "when large parts of Syria were outside of government control and people there did not take part in the polling." 

"Since then Assad's forces have captured much of Syria with the help of his allies Russia and Iran."

Left unexplained is that Iranian military advisors alone are involved, supporting Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity, helping its ruling authorities combat US-supported terrorists.

The CIA-connected Washington Post published the same AP report.

Since Obama regime aggression was launched in March 2011, Al Jazeera (AJ below) reports on endless war matched and continue to match the worst of US-led Western disinformation, Big Lies, fake news, and mass deception.

Commenting on Sunday's parliamentary voting, the Qatar owned and controlled propaganda operation defied reality, falsely claiming the process "lacks legitimacy (sic)." 

Calling US-led aggression "civil war," AJ falsely claimed "opposition to al-Assad's Baath Party is absent in the election" — a bald-faced Big Lie.

Large numbers of independent candidates are contesting for seats, scores likely to be elected — though falling way short of winning a parliamentary majority.

Elements boycotting the process are allied with US imperial aims that are all about transforming Syria into a vassal state under pro-Western puppet rule.

AJ quoted London-based Chatham House, a pro-imperial, pro-war, pro-corporate think tank that's hostile to all sovereign independent countries, saying the following:

"The majority of Syrians believe the election is only a process controlled by (Assad) to represent (him and parliament) as a legitimate authority in Syria (sic)."

Independent polls when conducted show Assad is overwhelmingly popular, greatly irritating the US, its imperial partners, supporters of dirty business as usual media, and hard-right think tanks like Chatham House.

According to AJ, US-supported cutthroat killer terrorists responsible for gruesome atrocities are "opposition and rebel groups."

Never throughout over nine years of US-launched aggression did AJ ever report accurately on the conflict.

Like Western establishment media, it falsely blames legitimate Syrian ruling authorities for years of high crimes committed against the state and its people by the US, its imperial partners, and jihadist proxies.

AJ reports on years of war in the country read and sound like Langley-scripted material — anti- Syria propaganda substituting for truth and full disclosure.

Elections in Syria, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and elsewhere mock farcical ones in the US and West that always turn out the same way.

Dirty business as usual always wins, democracy the way it should be considered abhorrent.

If elections in the West achieved positive change, governance serving everyone equitably, they'd be banned.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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