Damascus announces new election law, which opposition and international mediators reject
Damascus (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Syria's parliament approved a new election law yesterday but the opposition and international mediators have already rejected it.
Under the new provisions, multiple candidates would be allowed to run for president for the first time in decades. However, the law prevents exiled opposition leaders from running by stipulating that candidates must have lived in Syria for the last ten consecutive years.
The new clauses approved Thursday say presidential candidates must "be older than 40, must be Syrian, of Syrian parents . . . must not have been convicted for a crime . . . must not be married to a non-Syrian."
In addition, they "must have lived in the Syrian Arab Republic for ten consecutive years up until presenting his candidacy and must not hold a nationality other than Syrian".
Damascus has not officially announced a presidential election but a poll must be held between 60 and 90 days before the end of Assad's term on 17 July.
"If there is an election, my suspicion is the opposition, all the oppositions will probably not be interested in talking to the government," said UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in a briefing to the Security Council.
The last time a vote was held in Syria was in 2012 in a constitutional referendum that the opposition slammed as a "joke."
Indeed, the idea of voting during a war that has killed more than 140 000 deaths and displaced more than three million people is being seriously questioned.
"It is unconscionable that a humanitarian catastrophe of this scale is unfolding before our eyes with no meaningful progress to stop the bloodshed," UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
In a report, the UNHCR noted that in Lebanon alone the number of refugees is approaching one million, which is expected to swell to as many as 1.6 million by the end of the year.
"Lebanon already has the highest per-capita concentration of refugees of any country in recent history," the UNHCR said.
That would be equivalent to nearly 19 million refugees in Germany or more than 73 million in the United States, the agency said.
Some 584,000 Syrian refugees have also fled to Jordan, whilst another 634,000 are in Turkey and 226,000 in Iraq, according to UN figures.
"Imagine the crushing social and economic consequences of this crisis on Lebanon and other countries in the region," Guterres said.
Fewer than four per cent of fleeing Syrians have so far sought safety in Europe, excluding Turkey, Guterres said, increasingly taking life-threatening risks to reach the continent illegally.
In view of this, the UNHCR has appealed to resettlement countries in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific to make available 30,000 resettlement places this year and 100,000 in 2015 and 2016.
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