Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
issued a decree on Tuesday setting May 7 as the date for parliamentary elections that were delayed last year, the state news agency SANA reported.
The vote is part of a raft of reforms announced by Assad in a bid to calm a year-long uprising against his regime that began with democracy protests.
Assad's announcement comes as peace envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
said he was awaiting a response from the Syrian leader on "concrete proposals" which he had submitted to him in two rounds of talks in Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
at the weekend.
"I am expecting to hear from Syrian authorities today since I left some concrete proposals for them to consider," the UN-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy told news hounds in Ankara after a meeting with the Syrian opposition.
"Once I receive their answer we will know how to react."The elections would be the third time a legislative vote has taken place in Syria since Assad came to power in 2000.
The last parliamentary poll in 2007 saw the National Progressive Front, a coalition led by Assad's Baath Party, seize, as expected, the majority of the 250 seats in the assembly.
The May 7 vote was originally set to take place in September but was delayed to allow Assad to carry out reforms in the face of the revolt threatening his regime.