Syria’s Assad said to favour vote, but only after victory
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — President Bashar Assad is willing to run in an early presidential election, hold parliamentary elections, and discuss constitutional changes, but only after the defeat of “terrorist” groups, Russian lawmakers said after meeting with the Syrian leader yesterday.
The meeting came as Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were discussing new ideas for a political transition to end Syria’s nearly five-year civil war, which has killed 250,000 people and displaced half the country’s population.
The Western-backed Syrian opposition and other insurgent groups have refused to back any plan that does not include Assad’s exit from power, and were unlikely to view any elections held by his government as legitimate. The Syrian government considers the entire armed opposition to be “terrorists”.
“This is all political equivocation,” Munzer Akbik, a member of the main opposition Syrian National Council, told The Associated Press. “There is no sense in talking about elections now before a real transition of power.”
Russian lawmaker Alexander Yushchenko told the Tass news agency that Assad is ready to hold parliamentary elections” on the basis of all political forces that want Syria’s prosperity”. He said Assad is also ready to discuss constitutional reform and, if necessary, hold presidential elections, but only “after the victory over terrorism”.
Assad won re-election more than a year ago by a landslide in a vote dismissed as a sham by his opponents. Voting did not take place in areas controlled by the opposition, excluding millions of voters. Assad’s term expires in 2021.
Sergei Gavrilov, another Russian lawmaker, told Tass that Assad was ready to hold parliamentary elections that included “reasonable, patriotic opposition forces”. Parliament’s term expires in May 2016.
The latest push for a diplomatic solution to the conflict comes in the wake of Russia’s military intervention, which Moscow says is aimed at helping the Assad Government defeat the Islamic State group and other “terrorists”.