Syria is experiencing anti-governmental protests for more than a year. The number of victims is more than 9 thousand people. Moscow considers Syria to be one of the key players in the process of reaching peace in the Middle East. According to the presidential envoy on Africa, Mikhail Margelov, the situation in Syria canot be considered separately from Arab Spring, which is called “Islamic Winter” by experts.
Commenting on recent elections in the People’s Council of Syria, Riyad Khaddad, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the SAR to Russia, said: “For those people who decided to participate in it, it was not a simple election of the parliament; it was the demonstration of their patriotic position. This election was a challenge to all the enemies of Syria. We were choosing our future, and we managed to do it despite all the difficulties, despite the armed war against as. The elections took place despite all attempts to cancel or postpone them. The turnout was some 51%. I should mention that neither the military, nor the police, nor Syrian citizens living abroad took part in this election. The election was fair and transparent; they were monitored by independent observers. They were held according to the new law on elections and the new Constitution of Syria, which gave all the political forces an opportunity to participate. And it really happened. 10 parties took part in the election according to the list, but in fact there were more. Our people stand for true reforms. Our Central Electoral Committee formed the local committees, and the Central Committee looked into all complaints. Unfortunately, we had to hold the elections for a second time in many districts due to the number of complaints, which is why the results are being announced later. Our party, Ba'ath, took part in the elections, the party that led the Syrian people during all of its independent history, as well as other parties from the National Front: for example, the Communist party, which is even older than the Ba'ath. Both these parties are very popular. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of the new parties which took part in the election. These parties are only starting their political careers, but I believe they will also get their due support. All in all, I believe this election will ensure Syria’s stable and progressive development.”
Heydar Djemal, the head of the Russian Islamic Committee, who has recently returned from Syria, tsaid that what surprised him the most “is the absolute calm of the Syrian people. During our trip there there were no bombings, we saw no policemen. Unfortunately, the day after we left a series of major explosions hit the road to the airport; a lot of people died and were injured. So here’s the question: it is obvious that the Western coalition with the reactionary Arab monarchies acting against Syria have lost. The bombing was a desperate attempt by the opposition to say their final word, to draw their sponsors’ attention towards them. Today Turkey is already trying to escape the coalition, Bahrain’s anschluss demonstrates that. Qatar makes advances towards Iran, offering to leave Syria alone in exchange for support. We see that the developments on the Arabian peninsula, and it is obvious that the facade of the reactionary regimes is falling apart, and in the future they will have to face only riots against these reactionary governments. So we can congratulate the Syrian people: despite the latest onslaughts of the remaining oppositionists, the general victory is in the hands of Syria. And this is due to the joint efforts of Russia, China and Iran. The latter has helped Syria a lot by saying that any external force that intervenes in Syrian developments will have to deal with Tehran – and that is the achievement of the current Iranian government, which has a very strict position as far as its independence or the sovereignty of its allies is at stake. So I would like to congratulate the Syrian people – and all of us – on this victory.”
Dariya Mitina, deputy head of the Russian Solidarity with Libyan and Syrian Peoples Committee, gave her own estimation to the elections: “The Syrian people were truly absorbed by the election, and not by the war at the time, and it was very noticeable. The Syrians met the election with great anticipation and hope. The anticipation even seemed a bit naïve: they thought that the election would bring a whole new life. Of course it was very interesting to observe the voting, not only in the central district, in Damascus, but in other provinces as well. I and another member of our delegation, Said Gafurov, also got lost, just like Dmitry Valentinovitch, but he got lost in Damascus, and we got lost by taking a car and going where we wanted. And I have to tell you that there were no impediments: you can go to Homs or Ileb or Khana, wherever you want. It’s just that they can’t always guarantee your safety, but you can go wherever you want, no one stops you. We have travelled to the eastern province of Suwayda', it is the smallest Syrian province, it is located on the territory of the historical Djebel-Druze province, and the local population is mostly Druze. This province delegates only 6 MPs (6 of all the 250), but there was still great excitement about the election there. The principles of voting are the same there: candidates are not put forward by the parties. It is very interesting to note: now, when the results are published, it’s not that easy to understand which MP is from which party, and this is only natural as the candidates are put forward on the personal basis. So you pick your favourite, you have to find out which party he belongs to and you vote. The PR materials, the posters, the leaflets don’t indicate the party the candidate belongs to, there’s an unwritten agreement on that. They have evasive slogans like ‘Road to prosperity’ or ‘Progress and renovation’, but the voters have to find out for themselves which party each candidate belongs to. This was done, first of all, in the interests of the constructive opposition, it was their idea. I believe that thanks to this scheme even the candidates of the banned “Muslim Brotherhood” managed to take part in the election.
Plus there were no electronic devices, as the opposition believes that any use of electronics could help rig the elections. So the votes were counted by hand. The main specific trait of the Syrian elections – and I’m afraid that the international community will have something to say about that, as it is most dissimilar to the European elections – is that the people are not signed to their polling stations, there are no electoral registers, anyone can come to any station and the surnames of the voters are written in by hand. The same goes for the candidates. For example, the Damascus district delegates 30 MPs, and the voters have to write in the 30 surnames they choose by hand on his ballot paper. So that is why the counting of the votes lasted for 10 days. I’m actually surprised that they’ve managed to count it at all. They use the so-called ‘soft rating system’. When they list all the candidates, they choose the 30 most popular ones from Damascus, 6 from Suwayda' and so on. So the system is very complicated and inconvenient, and I understand the complaints of the Popular Front. I am convinced that electoral reform will be carried before the next election out to simplify the process.
In Suwayda' I had the impression that 1/3 of its inhabitants speak Russian. There is even a public organization of Russian women there. There are a lot of mixed marriages, many people received their education in Russia. For example, Suwayda's mayor, Me Malek Ahonned-Ali, studied in Uzhgorod, at the Physics faculty. So the level of Russian language understanding is very high there, and even though my companion spoke fluent Arabic, I also felt quite comfortable there.
In my opinion there were no serious violations, those who didn’t want to vote – and the turnout is only some 50% - just boycotted the election.
For Syria, and the Syrians believe that. I find the absolute silence of the world media on the topic of the Syrian election quite revealing: this election should have been in the focus of global attention, but the world’s most important information agencies are silent. This is a good sign; it would be worse if they were all discussing how the Syrian election is unfair and rigged. I see it as a sign of a certain acknowledgement Syria got from the world, even though it didn’t have to. So the fact that they don’t cry about ‘Syrian election fraud’ – I think it is a good sign.”
Speaking about the fact that a half of 10-million population of Syria didn’t go to ballot stations, the chairman of the Russian Committee on Solidarity with Peoples of Libya and Syria in Russia, Sergey Baburin, stated: “More than a half of voters tool part in the elections in Syria, while in Libya, for example, voters’ lists include less than 2 million people out of 4 million people who have vote rights. And how many of them will go to the elections – it is a question. I mean the lists include less than a half of people. In Syria more than a half of population participated in the elections. Thanks, God, they do not follow an example of some democratic states which bring armed forces to ballot stations. If the Syrian authorities would like to increase percentage of voters, they would bring the army to ballot stations. Many democratic countries should learn from Syria: to mark a figure for not voting twice; avoid participation of army conscripts in the elections. Of course, it will reduce number of voters who take part in elections. But these are democratic conditions. Why didn’t anybody come? There are many reasons. Remoteness or fear. I supposed there might be terrorist attacks in ballot stations. Fortunately, there were none. Some people are not interested in policy. There are various reasons.”
According to Riyad Khaddad, “there were difficult conditions of holding the elections in Syria, because the opposition tried to prevent people from voting, they threatened people, especially in remote regions. Many people were threatened, but despite the fact a lot of people came and voted. Despite all difficulties, more than a half of voters came to the election, ballot stations.”
As for conduction of further reforms in Syria, Riyad Khaddad noted: “New People’s Council which has been elected will continue to fulfill planned reforms. We have already implemented and plan to implement a series of reforms. At the moment, serious changes are taking place. We have party pluralism – more than 20 parties. New authorities will face new tasks. We should reconsider the constitution. After composition of new People’s Council the government will resign, and a new government will be elected. There are a lot of objectives. We should improve human rights and launch new Syria from difficulties which it is experiencing. We agreed for the initiative by Kofi Annan who got the international mandate for increasing number of international observers, for they observe the situation objectively. I haven’t heard about increasing the number of observers. At the moment there are 200 of them. Maybe it will be 300 people. We support them and protect them, for they act objectively and neutrally. It is the most important aspect of their activity.”
Answering the question on whether Russia will export armament to Syria, whether it will withdraw sanctions and financial restrictions in the country and how it correlate with Russia’s foreign policy doctrine, Sergey Baburin said: “We follow attentively all decisions made by the top officials of Russia and activity in the Syrian direction. I wouldn’t foreclose our conclusions. We stand for withdrawing the sanctions which prevent reconstruction of peaceful life. As for the authorities, we do not support the authorities either materially or in some different way. Tomorrow the authorities might change. I don’t see stability there today. We should learn lessons of the past.”
Darya Mitina believes that “Syria appreciates the position of Russia. It is shown by their welcoming the veto by Russia and China. Of course, they have a positive attitude to our country. At the same time, the Syrians are realists, they understand everything. They directly state they are luckier than Libyans, as unlike the situation in Libya, interests of Gazprom and their interests coincided. In Libya they didn’t coincide and we see the result. We had a very productive meeting with the supreme mufti of Syria, Ahmed Badraddin-Hasan. It was the first top official foreigner who gave such a direct and explicit characteristic. Even our mass media prefer to speak very delicately, impersonally without names, as well as foreign observers and experts. But he said openly that what has happened in Libya – that the country was vanished from the world map – is a personal fault of President Dmitry Medvedev, because of which he lost any presidential prospects. Our foreign colleagues who always very diplomatically speak about the subject stop to hide it. Therefore, the Syrians have a very realistic view on Russian policy and its possible decisions. They are satisfied with the things happened, but they understand they could be different.”
At the same time some people say that in connection with Russia’s position on Syria the centers appeared that try to blackmail Russia by threats to intensify terrorist activity in the Caucasus. Commenting on the recent Istanbul meeting of representatives of non-governmental organizations from Arab countries, Europe, Turkey and representatives of radical groups acting in the Caucasus, Heydar Djemal said: “At the moment the Islamic world experience the process that is called by experts not Arab Spring, the Western term, but Islamic Awaking. The major international conference was held in Tehran. The process is natural, and it is naïve to consider it as a mechanism launched by the CIA, for example. The process has always existed. Islamic Awaking is lasting for decades. The point is today the process is seen clearly due to one reason: Republicans of the US have to drop back, and left Democrats, headed by Obama, have given green light to destroying of traditional leaders of the Middle East, who used to be Bush’s people. The gates are open. As any massive process, it is a platform for struggle between various forces. Iran, Turkey, and Arab countries fight for Islamic Awaking, for heading the process. It is natural that after Iran stated on its intention to control the process, Turkey cannot stay uninvolved. I remind you that the conference “Islamic Awaking” was attended by such VIP-persons as the Supreme spiritual leader of Talibs, despite the fact Taliban is associated with confrontation with Tehran. Turkey will make similar steps and hold similar conferences without any doubts. At the same time, the process of assortment is taking place. Assortment of those forces that apply for becoming a new generation of political Islam: caliphatists, Salaphits, Ikhwans, and so on. For example, in Egypt Salaphits, who gain 20% of votes in the elections, supported Mubarak under Mubarak’s reign and fought against political Islam. When Mubarak left the stage, they immediately registered the party Anur and strived for the elections. They are the severe rivals of Egyptian Ikhwans, I don’t speak about Syrian ones, as Ikhwans have different connotations in different countries. Hamas is Ikhwan too. They could break out a civil war in Egypt. That is why serious assortment is taking place, according to various levels of loyalty, various roots and tales stretching to different parts of the world from Beijing to Washington, from Tehran to Moscow. The events happening in Turkey are a viewing point enabling to sift out ashes from cinders.”
