Thepresidential race in Syria has begun. The head of parliament, Mohammed Jihad al-Lahham, had announced the date of elections on 3 June.
The opposition has rejected the move and declared that opening the door for nomination for the presidential elections under these conditions reflects the mentality of the regime that does not take into account the reality of the Syrian people.
The leftist opposition leader, Mansour Atassi- from the city of Homs which was abandoned by two-thirds of its population- confirmed to All4Syria that "all the opposition forces announced their rejection of the election".
Atassi believes that "the regime will move silent organizations to provide nomination in all Syrian provinces to declare that all Syrian cities will participate in the elections".
The leader in the Syrian National Council, Bassam Ishak, told All4Syria that "the opposition will not participate in the presidential election, and in my personal opinion, the opposition should challenge Assad's nomination to highlight the fraud carried out by the regime, as participation does not give legitimacy to the illegitimate regime, but it is an opportunity to put pressure on it."
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "the real legitimacy will be determined by the ballot box and the Syrian people will freely determine who will lead them in the next phase, through the multi-party elections for the first time in Syria's modern history."
Chairman of the Parliament, Jihad al-Laham, meanwhile, said that "the Council has received a notice from the Supreme Constitutional Court that Maher Hajjar put a request to the court on 22 April, 2014 declaring his candidacy for the presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic."
Howeve Ishak told All4Syria his hope that "the candidate is independent and has taken this step without coordination with the regime".
Ishak expressed his doubts about thier independence, stressing that "We all know that in Syria, members of the so-called parliament are appointed by regime's security forces and they do not have any autonomy in their decisions."
Atassi, commenting on Hajjar's nomimation, said: "Hajjar belongs to Qadri Jamil's group and it seems that state agencies had asked the latter to nominate one of its members from Aleppo."
Atassi stressed that "who ran or will run will be the same as Assad himself, they all belong to the sleeping cells of the regime people pretending to be from the opposition, but are in fact followers of the regime and will not stand against Assad."
Lawyer Hassan Abdeazim, the General Coordinator of the National Coordination Commission, said that "the mechanism for nomination enshrined in the Constitution will surely face a problem because there is no opposition force ready to participate in the elections or even in the nomination".
"The opposition did not participate in the development of the current constitution or in a referendum on it," he added.
In response to the statements of the Foreign Ministry, Atassi said: "Let the Foreign Ministry say what it wants, is always does things in line with the policy of the regime. This interpretation does not give any legitimacy to approve the election."
Atassi added that "the elections put the Syrian people and the world before a fait accompli, that there is a legitimate elected president and this is contrary to the resolutions of the Arab League and the United Nations, an interpretation explained by Lakhdar Brahimi and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the two who put forward the text of Geneva I".
The National Coalition declared through its Secretary of the Political Commission, Hadi al-Bahra, that "setting the date of presidential elections in the third of next June confirms Assad's regime lack of seriousness in accepting the international efforts that have agreed on the formation of a transitional governing body as an only window to reach a political solution for the Syrian crisis."
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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