Monday June 2, 2014

I've Been Thinking:

It sounds outrageous, but on Tuesday Syria will go to the polls to elect a president. That's right - the Syrians have been embroiled in a civil war since March 2011 and now is the time they have chosen to vote for a president?

It is part of the deal that all sides, including the United States and other Western nations and the warring parties in Syria, agreed upon. They wanted the people to have a say, they wanted them to vote. Of course, at the time, the brilliant minds that compose the international community could never have foreseen that Assad would be a sure bet for a landslide victory.

When Syrians go to the polls there will be three candidates to choose from. When the process started, there were twenty-four viable candidates including two women and a Christian. Now Assad is the main candidate and the other two other names on the ballot, Hassan Abdullah al Nouri and Maher Abdul Hafiz Hajjar, are simply tokens or symbolic candidates.

This is the first time that a presidential election in Syria will not be simply a referendum. In the past there were no other options.
Then, in the early part of 2014, the Syrian parliament passed a law to create a real, multi-candidate election program. Even though all three names are on the ballot, there is little to no doubt about who the winner will be, despite the fact that the police and the army are prohibited from voting.

Western leaders thought this election would pressure Assad. In the end, it empowers Assad.

The entire idea of having elections to solve a problem in the Middle East in the middle of a civil war is irresponsible thinking on the part of those trying to build stability. Did they really hope to oust Assad? Really now, how could they even in their wildest, most hopeful, imagination expect that outcome?

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