Syria to go ahead with Prez election

The Syrian army’s successes of the past few months and the failure of the UN-sponsored Geneva peace conference to end the three-year conflict have prompted the Syrian government to call for a multi-candidate presidential election on June 3.

Deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad said that without an election Syria would face a political and constitutional vacuum and argued that elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali and other countries in turmoil are held without question.

‘Why not Syria?’ The US and its allies have, of course, condemned the move.

The tide of battle in the Syrian civil conflict has turned decisively enough in favour of the government that it feels confident it can conduct an election although at most only half of those eligible to vote may be able to cast ballots because they are refugees living outside or displaced within the country.

Insurgents are losing ground in the centre and south of the country and are calling for ceasefires and amnesty while the government is gradually restoring services to areas formerly held by insurgents.

An opposition activist based outside Syria said, ‘The general understanding among regime opponents is that the US has sold Syria back to Assad and this is why the armed opposition is considering a negotiated solution.’

In his view, ‘The main battle will be in the north, where a line will be drawn in the sand" and there will be a ‘temporary partition’ between the rest of the country and the north where fundamentalist insurgents, enjoying Turkish and Saudi support, will establish an ‘Islamic emirate’ and try to negotiate a power-sharing deal with Damascus which would permit it to govern on a national basis but share authority on the local level.
 
However, such an arrangement is unlikely because the government feels empowered and the military has been energised by its string of victories in the centre and west.

There is also the expectation that the army will soon ‘cleanse’ insurgent pockets in the south.

The conflict has always been over possession of pockets rather than ranging over large swathes of territory.

This leaves the the insurgents in the north the main challenge. Turkish political and military support will determine whether the insurgents there survive or not. 

If US and its European allies, concerned over the stability of the Levant region, press Turkey to withdraw its backing, the north could also come under government rule once again.

While insurgents based in the suburbs of the capital have already sued for ceasefires or are doing so now, some groups continue to lob random mortars into the city, killing and wounding civilians on a daily basis.

However, mortars do not prevent Damascenes from going to school, work, and shops.
Mortars and car-bombs are seen as a sign of insurgent weakness rather than of strength.

Damascenes long for the day the army will clear insurgents from pockets east of the city and end the mortar fire.

The highway to Damascus international airport is under government control, flights have resumed to Aleppo, the former commercial hub, and the roads to the industrial cities of Homs and Yabroud are open.

The countryside south of Homs to Damascus and west of the capital to the Lebanese border has been pacified by the army.

A better situation

Syrians in Damascus and Homs, visited by this correspondent, say the situation is better than when the Geneva peace conference was convened in February.

Life goes on as normally a possible.

Markets are filled with food, petrol is available, and electricity cuts here in Damascus have been reduced.

The centre of town may have a two hour cut from three to five, in the city's suburbs cuts are for three hours twice a day, in the countryside for three hours three times a day.

The government's drive to achieve ceasefires and ‘reconciliation’ has helped calm the situation. Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said he has a detailed national plan for effecting local truces and reconciliation and listed Damascus suburbs where the plan has been implemented.

In spite of government gains on the ground and the election, analysts expect the conflict to continue for months, taking more lives and destroying more and more of this ancient and central Arab country. 

The West and its allies still remain determined to ‘take out’ Syria as they have ‘taken out’ Iraq. 

Syria is just too independent-minded. If the task was not accomplished by military means — arming insurgents — it was to be achieved by negotiations at Geneva.

But both options failed to dislodge the regime at great cost in destruction and the loss of more than 100,000 lives.

Now the West and its Arab Gulf allies seek to weaken the regime as much as possible without fracturing Syria into a collection of jihadi emirates which would export fighters who could radicalise not only West Asia but also north and central Africa, and the Indian Subcontinent.