 DAMASCUS - Voting for SyriaÂ’s parliament ended on Monday with reportedly low turnout and a widespread lack of enthusiasm for the two-day polls which opposition activists had urged supporters to boycott.
| PencilNeck is going to claim a mandate, I just know it ... |
Nearly 12 million Syrians were eligible to vote, according to the official SANA news agency, which also reported that 2,500 candidates stood for the 250 seats in the assembly. Results were expected to be announced on Tuesday. The vote took place ‘in total freedom and transparency,’ SANA said on Monday, without giving turnout figures for the first day’s vote on Sunday.
‘Turnout is low but higher than yesterday,’ an official at a downtown Damascus polling station told AFP shortly before polls closed, walls behind him featuring posters of President Bashar Al Assad with his father and predecessor Hafez. ‘Citizens, elections are a national democratic celebration. Vote for whoever you think is the most competent,’ read a nearby interior ministry sign.
| "And we'll inform you as to who is competent." |
While turnout on Monday appeared low at several other polling stations visited by AFP in the capital, an AFP photographer in Damascus’ poorer southern districts reported ‘relatively high turnout’ with people queueing to vote.
| Of course the AFP noticed that. |
Residents appeared split on whether the election, totally lacking in suspense for most people, would bring any change.
Of the 250 seats, 167 are reserved for the ruling National Progressive Front (NPF) coalition, led by Assad’s Baath party. The party itself is guaranteed 131 seats, or 52 percent of the total. The other 83 seats are allocated to so-called independent candidates ‘close to the authorities,’ according to lawyer Hassan Abdel-Azim, spokesman for six banned, but largely tolerated, parties operating under the umbrella National Democratic Rally (NDR). Abdel-Azim said it was ‘pointless to take part in an election whose results are known in advance... The NPF will come out the winner,’ as it has done in all organised elections since 1973.
| Does take the suspense right out of it. |
Even the official Tishrin daily said last week that Syrians ‘have lost their enthusiasm for the parliamentary elections.’
| How could they lose something they never had? |
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