Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition – Syria
Department of Media and Communications
July 17, 2020
The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) said that the elections the Assad regime intends to hold in the areas under its control are illegitimate as they will be held by a terrorist regime that has long lost legitimacy and credibility. These are no more than a farce that will be organized by security apparatuses and cannot be viewed with any seriousness.
Syria has not known true elections since the Assad regime seized power fifty years ago. The so-called elections that have taken place ever since are no more than a farce taking place under the grip of Assad’s military and security agencies. What changed today is that these so-called elections are taking place while half of the Syrian people have been displaced from their homes and while the country is under Russian-Iranian occupation. They will take place right under direct supervision of militias, mercenaries and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Attempts to rehabilitate this regime through this travesty of elections are doomed to fail as the whole world knows that such farce will only be met with ridicule by the Syrian people. These so-called elections will fail to give the terrorist regime any legitimacy as its survival depends on foreign occupation, repression, killing and crime.
The Assad regime has not received any real popular support since it usurped power. The lists of candidates for these elections include individuals who have been targeted by the Western sanctions in response to their involvement in killing the Syrian people.
The only legitimate electoral process expected in Syria is the one stipulated by UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the one which is based on the results of the political process leading to the formation of a Transitional Governing Body with full powers that will oversee fair, transparent elections of a parliament and a president representing the Syrian people and with the participation of all Syrians, and under the supervision of international institutions that guarantee transparent, fair and balanced elections.
