Both supporters of Bashar Al Assad, as well as many who want to see him removed from power, on Tuesday cast ballots to keep him in office for another seven years.
The president’s backers were inspired by zealous love for their leader. His opponents were motivated by fear of arrest by the secret police if they did not also give him their vote.
State TV showed large crowds at polling stations in the capital. But for much of the day, the hundreds of voting centres in Damascus (as many as 16 in Nisreen Street in the Tadamon neighbourhood of Damascus) were all but deserted, except for a heavy security presence.
Government media said turnout was high, while an anecdotal survey of dozens of polling stations in different parts of the capital suggested much more moderate participation.
Mr Al Assad’s victory is a foregone conclusion, given the strict control exercised by the feared security agencies he commands, which are the real power in Syria.
Many of those casting ballots on Tuesday were government employees, who described being bussed to polling stations from their offices.
They’d been instructed by their bosses to take part in an election that has been decried as an empty fraud by the Syrian opposition and as an obstacle to peace by the UN.
Mr Al Assad’s regime claimed it as proof that Syria was a vibrant democracy.
Voting only took place in parts of the country still under regime control, including central Damascus.
Up to 40 per cent of Syrian territory is estimated to be in rebel hands or violently contested, among them areas just a few kilometres away from the centre of the capital.
As a reminder of the war that has already claimed more than 160,000 lives and which continues to rage unabated, fighter jets and attack helicopters flew over Damascus on Tuesday on bombing sorties targeting the rebel areas of Daraya and Jobar. Mortar bombs fired by insurgents exploded near Umaween and Umayyad Square.
The election is the first contested presidential ballot since the Al Assad family seized power in Syria in 1970, but the other two candidates in the running, Hassan Al Nouri and Maher Hajjar, are both regime approved.
No real opposition figures took part. They boycotted the election and were excluded by laws passed earlier this year that prevented their participation.
“It’s not an election where we actually get to choose anyone, it’s still Assad or Assad, the other two guys are unknown and they support Assad anyway, so it’s no choice,” said a resident of Damascus who did not cast a vote.
“No one I know takes this seriously, the pro-regime people know it is not a real election and so do the anti-regime people, it’s a piece of public theatre, like all the votes we have in this country,” he said.
Syrian government officials sought to stress the democratic nature of the election, describing it as “an historic turning point”, and different from previous rubber-stamp presidential referendums, in which Mr Al Assad has won more than 90 per cent approval.
Despite the claims that this vote represented a new era, many of the old tricks remained in play, including multiple votes cast by Al Assad supporters, and coercion of government employees.
“My boss told us, ‘Today you go and vote, there is no other work, your work today is to vote’, and they put all of my department on a bus to the polling station and then they bussed us back,” said 30-year-old Anas, a government worker.
“Of course I voted for Assad, what else could I do?” he said.
There were numerous reports of multiple voting, with security officers casting up to five ballots, and civilians casting votes on behalf of absent family members.
“I saw one person voting three times while I was in a polling station,” and people were all joking about it,” said another city resident who went to vote.
“He put ink on his finger to show he had voted once, which means he shouldn’t be allowed again, but he just went through twice more, no one stopped him, it was very open.” Sana, the state run news agency, reported there were “no problems whatsoever” and that all rules and regulations were being adhered to.
Mr Al Assad does command real support from hardcore loyalists and has backers among Syrians who have little love for his regime, but who see no real alternative.
However, even those actively working to topple the Syrian president cast their votes for him, fearing that failure to do so would attract the attention of the feared secret police, notorious for torturing those opposed to Assad family rule.
“I have friends and family who have voted for Assad because they fear coming under attack if they don’t, it’s just easier to vote for him than to not – it doesn’t mean anything anyway,” said an opposition activist.
Syrian TV said Mr Al Assad cast his vote at a school in Maliki, the upmarket Damascus neighbourhood where he lives.
Four years into an uprising turned civil war that has wreaked tremendous destruction on Syria, he has shown no willingness to relinquish power, insisting that he is all that stands between order and chaos.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
