The Syrian government held municipal elections this week, just as security forces and army defectors fought the biggest battle yet in a nine-month uprising. Opposition activists called for a boycott and general strike, saying the vote was meaningless since it was being held under a violent crackdown that the United Nations says has claimed 5,000 lives. Authorities insisted that the vote was freer than previous elections, proving that President Bashar al-Assad is fulfilling promises to reform a decades-old autocracy. Can any good really come from the vote?
The election is a joke: "To call this an 'election' is an abuse of the word," Mahmoud Muraie, an opposition leader, tells Abu Dhabi's The National. If the government is serious about reform and democracy, it will release political prisoners, allow independent foreign observers into the country, and stop killing people in the streets.
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