Analysis: What the election results tell about the reality of war-torn Syria

It’s a lot better than the election results of the UK where only 24% of the returned votes put the Conservatives in power given that the other 76% did not want Conservatives. UK’s democracy is neither fair nor representative unlike that of Syria’s.

OffGuardian

SyrianElectionsKen Stone writes in Strategic Culture:

Syrian election on 13 April was a vote of confidence by the Syrian people in their government. 5,085,444 voters cast their ballots out of a possible 8,834,994 eligible voters.

The overall participation rate of 58% (virtually identical to Canada’s last federal election) exceeded the government’s expectations in most places but was low in others. For example, it was over 80% in Homs but only 52% in Tartous. What might explain the uneven results is the history of the war. People who suffered the most from the war, for example in Homs, were probably more grateful for their liberation and more motivated to exercise their political rights than people in Tartous who saw no fighting at all  (though they lost thousands upon thousands of sons and grandsons in the war).

Also significant was the fact that over 140,000 refugees returned across the Lebanese border…

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