generalspeaking

Democracy For Syria!

Syria's Supreme constitutional Court has done its duty, vetting the potential candidates that will vie with President Bashar al-Assad for the presidency of the country which venal, feral sectarian tribal hatred has torn asunder. The Court has done its duty in eliminating 21 people who had presumed that they had the right to offer themselves to govern the country. They did, however, see fit to give a green light for candidacy to two other candidates.

The 21 ineligible would-be candidates will go home to lick their vanity-bruised wounds, and Hassan bin Abdullah al-Nour, 54, a lawmaker from Damascus, and 43-year-old Maher Abdul-Hafiz Hajjar, another lawmaker but from the city of Aleppo will prepare to square off against Mr. Assad, meekly seeking a third seven-year term.


How legitimate this bit of democratic chicanery could appear even to the Shia-Alawite-biased in Syria is of considerable debate, given that voting will be held only within government-controlled territory. Previous 'elections' had been held by referenda where only the Assad family were promoted as 'candidates', and Syrian voters were permitted to cast their yes-or-no ballots. That's Syrian-style democracy.

But in the midst of chaotic slaughter the Syrian parliament approved in theory an electoral law offering the opportunity to present as candidates not only President al-Assad, but other aspiring Syrians who may feel they can produce a creditable job at engineering the presidency into something approximating legitimacy. Or an unreasonable facsimile thereof. A feel-good pantomime, perhaps.

There were certain constraints imposed, however. Where conditions were placed to ensure that no opposition figures could ever be deemed suitable candidates for election. Candidates must have been resident in the country for the past ten years, and their only citizenship must be that of the state. It would appear, through those who have knowledge of such esoterica, that a large Syrian demographic trusts neither the regime nor the opposition.

How utterly incomprehensible.

While the Islamist Sunni opposition parties representing the Nusra Front and their rivals the Islamic State have been engrossed in their little war of conquest against one another, with al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri attempting to broker peace between the two jihadi groups, the rebels that have held their position in Homs are expected to be forced out by government troops through a cease-fire agreement promising them safe exit.

Rebels negotiating on behalf of the rebels including Samer al-Homsi, agreed to a surrender deal. The trouble is, between food and medical aid reaching a Shiite-dominated area in northern Syria blocked by rebels and the permitted safe exit of some two thousand fighters and activists from 13 opposition-held districts, are concers that the pro-Assad militias (Hezbollah) are preparing to fire on them as they attempt to leave.

Homs' surrender, known as the "capital of the Syrian revolution" in recognition of the number of residents who joined the initial peaceful uprising, represents a sad blow to support of the overturning of Assad's regime. Just as the al-Qaeda-brokered cease-fire between the two jihadist Islamist groups, Nusra and The Islamic State, has deteriorated and conflict has resumed with 63 people killed.

This undated file image posted on a militant website on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014 shows fighters from the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) marching in Raqqa, Syria. (AP Photo/militant website)

Labels: Conflict, Islamism, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, May 06, 2014