Syrians in government-controlled areas have voted in the country’s first local elections since 2011, as a major offensive looms in the last rebel stronghold.
But no voting took place in areas outside government control, including Kurdish-held parts of the northeast and the northwest Idlib province, the largest remaining rebel-held territory, Al Jazeera reports.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The country last held local council election in December 2011, just nine months into the conflict.
“I’m optimistic that the incoming council will rebuild and recover the city after the huge destruction suffered by years of fighting,” said one voter from Deir Ezzor.
But a vast majority of the candidates are members of the ruling Baath party or affiliated to it, which “deterred some people from casting their ballot,” the Qatari broadcaster says.
“Why vote? Will anything change? Let's be honest,” said another voter in the capital, who boycotted the poll.
“Everyone knows the results are sealed in advance for a single party, whose members will win in a process that's closer to an appointment than it is to an election,” he added.
The election process is unlikely to be fair, agrees Joshua Clarkson, a risk analyst at Foreign Brief.
Expect President Bashar al-Assad loyalists of the Baath Party to dominate local elections, “giving the president a facade of local support and bolstering his position in the rebuilding process,” he says.
Meanwhile, Russian-backed government forces are preparing a major military offensive to retake Idlib, the last part of the country controlled by rebels.
The assault on a region home to three million civilians is already “shaping up to be the worst of the Syrian war,” says David Gardner, international affairs editor at the Financial Times.
“With Idlib it looks like this conflict — already a catalogue of horror — has saved the worst for last,” he says.
-
Nasa’s new dark matter mapUnder the Radar High-resolution images may help scientists understand the ‘gravitational scaffolding into which everything else falls and is built into galaxies’
-
Is the US about to lose its measles elimination status?Today's Big Question Cases are skyrocketing
-
‘No one is exempt from responsibility, and especially not elite sport circuits’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Syria’s Islamic State problemIn The Spotlight Fragile security in prison camps leads to escape of IS fighters
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
