Syrians stream to embassies to vote in controversial poll

BEIRUT — Syrian expats streamed to their embassy in Beirut Wednesday to vote in a controversial presidential election as war raged at home and bombs killed more than 40 people in the city of Aleppo.

With expats around the world voting in advance of the June 3 election, Beirut’s Yarzeh district was festooned with Syrian flags and portraits of President Bashar Al Assad, who is expected to cruise to victory.

An estimated three million Syrians live abroad, including peacetime residents and refugees, but only about 200,000 were able to vote Wednesday, at 38 embassies, a foreign ministry source said in Damascus.

In Amman and under tight security, Syrian voters lined up in their hundreds outside their embassy.

Around 30 anti-regime activists stood near the mission, chanting slogans and carrying a banner which read: “No to the killer’s reelection.” (see story page 3)

Pro-regime daily Al-Watan said that is “a relatively acceptable figure, if we bear in mind the fact that France, Germany and Belgium have banned Syrian citizens” from voting, along with the United Arab Emirates.

The ministry says 40,000 citizens in Lebanon, which hosts more than a million refugees fleeing the violence, are on the electoral register.

Damascus has barred refugees who left Syria through unofficial crossings from taking part in the election.

By midday, all the entrances to the Lebanese capital were blocked, causing long tailbacks, as thousands of Syrians descended on the embassy, mostly by foot.

The army set up checkpoints around the embassy to head off any disturbances, with the country’s Syrian community sharply divided into pro- and anti-Assad camps.

Lion of the Arabs

There was little sign of any opposition voters in the long queues outside the mission.

“The lion of the Arabs,” and “With our soul, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you,” read slogans on Assad’s portraits.

“Where are the ‘Friends of Syria’? If only they would come and see this picture” of thousands taking part in the election, said one young man, sitting on a bus waving the Syrian flag.

Others made the V-for-victory sign.

Syria’s exiled opposition and its Western backers, who hold international meetings under a “Friends of Syria” umbrella, have ridiculed the June 3 vote as a “farce”.

The civil war raging since March 2011 has killed more than 160,000 people and forced nearly half of the population to flee their homes.

More casualties were added to the figure Wednesday, with news that air force raids on rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo had killed more than 40 people in 24 hours.

Barrel bombs killed 22 people in eastern districts of Aleppo Tuesday and another 21 Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Nine children figured among the dead, the Britain-based observatory added, warning that the toll could rise because “many people are in serious condition and there bodies are under the rubble”.

But Syrian state television repeatedly interrupted its programmes to broadcast live images of crowds of loyalists voting in Beirut.

Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdelkarim Ali said “these elections are a response to those who had wagered on the fall of Syria. It proves that the Syrian people are attached to their land, their country and their sovereignty”.

The regime ensured no upsets by barring exiles from standing and with candidates needing endorsement by 35 MPs in the state-controlled parliament.

The United States has called the vote a “parody of democracy”.

Assad’s reelection is not in doubt in Syria’s first multicandidate presidential poll, running against two little-known opponents. Maher Al Hajjar, an independent former communist MP, and Hassan Al Nouri, a businessman, are seen as token rivals.

Inside Syria, the conflict has left large swathes of territory under rebel control, allowing for voting only in regime-controlled areas.