DAMASCUS-
Voting offices opened Tuesday in Syrian regime-held areas for a presidential election that Bashar al-Assad is certain to win, and that has been slammed as a “farce” by the opposition.
Voting began at 7:00 am (0400 GMT) in 9,000 voting offices open only in areas under regime control, for an election boycotted by the opposition and which experts say will only prolong a brutal war that has ravaged the country for three years.People queued outside voting offices in Damascus, where billboards and posters glorify the head of state.
In Baghdad Street in downtown Damascus, 40-year-old Nadia Hazim cast her vote at the Bassel al-Assad school. She told AFP that she would “vote for the president (Assad), naturally”.
In the hall, a transparent ballot box could be seen, as well as a voting booth behind a white curtain. Photographs of Assad as well as two virtually unknown candidates had also been put up in the voting office.
Voters were searched on entry, as the election comes a day after a truck bomb attack in Homs that killed 10 people, and that compounded fears that regime-held areas might come under rebel attack on voting day.
Opposition chief Ahmad Jarba has called on Syrians to “stay home”, while opposition activists who launched a March 2011 Arab Spring-inspired revolt against Assad have branded the vote a “blood election”.
The interior ministry says more than 15 million Syrians have been called to participate in what is theoretically the country´s first election in some 50 years, with Assad and his father Hafez renewing their mandates in successive referendums.
It takes place as a savage war rages, with the air force bombarding rebel areas in Aleppo and fierce fighting in Hama, Damascus, Idlib and Daraa. More than 162,000 people have been killed in the past three years.
Observers from countries allied to the regime — North Korea, Iran and Russia — are supervising the voting, while regime media says a security plan has been put in place to prevent possible attacks against voters and polling stations.