Assad only politician capable of pulling Syria out of quicksand its in - expert

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By Sergei Duz

Monday was a "Day of Silence" in Syria. On Tuesday, the country is to elect its president. Experts believe that there are two possible scenarios: it will be either al-Assad or al-Qaeda. The voting in Syria is to take place on June 3. Parliamentarians from 30 friendly countries, including Russia, will be observing the elections.

Little known politicians are running for the presidential seat along with President Bashar al-Assad – Communist MP from Aleppo Maher Abdel Hafiz Hajjar and businessman Hassan Abdel Illyahi en-Nuri, a former state minister in charge of the National Initiative for Reform. The first one acts in the interests of working people who have suffered as a result of the crisis; en-Nuri considers the fight against corruption and the support of the middle class to be his priority.

According to preliminary forecasts, the outcome of the elections is predetermined. No less than 70% of the citizens set to take part in the voting will support the current head of the state Bashar al-Assad. The other two candidates will get 15% each. Here is the commentary of Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

"In essence, there are no opponents to Assad. The upcoming elections can be viewed as some sort of referendum. According to the Syrian constitution, the ruling party is to elect its leader, which is Bashar al-Assad. This time, there are several candidates running against al-Assad, but they all have stated that they would be happy if al-Assad won. The upcoming elections are an attempt by Assad to show that he controls the situation in the country, that there is a Syrian state capable of holding such presidential elections. The elections are held at the moment when an increasing number of Syrian people are disenchanted by the revolution, which they no longer view as a feasible alternative to al-Assad."

According to Syrian political analyst Mehdi Dahlyulla, this is the first in Syria's history of elections with several presidential candidates and will become an important step towards democratic plurality. Conducting the elections within the constitutional term means the victory of the independent choice made by the Syrian people. According to the analyst, "for the future political steps and initiatives of Damascus it is very important, how many people will vote for al-Assad on Tuesday."

In the last day of the election campaign al-Assad stated that Syria had withstood and warded off the plot aimed against it thanks to its people. However, one of his opponents, Maher Abdel Hafiz Hajjar, agrees with that only partially. "The Arab Spring is a true movement of the Arab nations. People went to the streets with clear and justified demands and that is their right. Unfortunately, international political forces used the Arab Spring for their selfish purposes and channeled it into another direction. Initially there was no plot."

Maher Abdel Hafiz Hajjar believes that the new head of state has to have three priorities:

"First of all, it includes the improvement of the social situation of our citizens. I believe that the crisis in the country started due to the poverty of some regions as well as the social discrimination. I intend to fight poverty by improving economic criteria and the social guarantees of all the citizens of the country."

"Secondly, my priorities include the strengthening of Syria's role on the international arena. Our country has a great potential for cooperation with the BRICS countries, primarily with Russia and China."

"Thirdly, we need to strengthen Syria's role in the Arab world. Syria will work towards ridding our region of despotism of any given country. Syria aims to become a democracy and only its people can run the country. In order to strengthen our position in the Arab world we need to improve Syria's economy."

Meanwhile, the optimistic forecasts regarding Syria's future are in this or that way linked to al-Assad. No matter how one views his personality, one must admit that the current president is perhaps the only present politician capable of pulling the country from that dramatic dead-end that it finds itself in partially at the hands of the West, which decided to support the Arab Spring without taking the specifics of the region into account. According to the majority of experts, currently, Syria finds itself at a crossroads: either al-Assad keeps his presidential position or al-Qaeda takes over the power and wins the war waged against terrorists. The presidential election is a good moment for the government to demonstrate that it controls the situation in the country.

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