SYRIA: Qadri Jameel, a Damascus-based Syrian independent politician, casts his ballot in the country's parliamentary elections, saying he is receiving reports of harassment towards non-Baath Party members

Record ID: 280704

  • Title: SYRIA: Qadri Jameel, a Damascus-based Syrian independent politician, casts his ballot in the country's parliamentary elections, saying he is receiving reports of harassment towards non-Baath Party members
  • Date: 8th May 2012
  • Summary: DAMASCUS, SYRIA (MAY 7, 2012) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF POLLING STATION PEOPLE STANDING OUTSIDE POLLING STATION MORE OF EXTERIOR OF POLLING STATION WITH PEOPLE STANDING OUTSIDE SECRETARY GENERAL OF POPULAR FRONT FOR CHANGE AND LIBERATION, QADRI JAMEEL, FOLDING HIS BALLOT PAPER CLOSE ON JAMEEL FOLDING BALLOT JAMEEL PLACING BALLOT IN BOX VARIOUS OF JAMEEL CLEANING HIS FIN
  • Embargoed: 23rd May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Syrian Arab Republic
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3VF0OSOXBNZ0B3784SRU6SOXJ
  • Story Text: Syrians voted in a parliamentary election on Monday (May 7) touted by authorities as a milestone of political reform, but dismissed by the opposition as a façade while people are killed every day in an anti-government uprising.
    Independent politician Qadri Jameel, whose Popular Front for Change and Liberation was fielding candidates in the polls, said some of his party's volunteers were 'harassed' in some polling stations.
    Jameel said voter turnout was 'more than average' in areas far from hotspots that for the past 14 months have been at the centre of an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
    Assad dismisses the uprising as the work of foreign-backed "terrorists".
    "There are no violations but there is harassment because some people are still living in the 8th article's mentality of the old constitution. The farther we go from Damascus the more this mentality shows. The agents told me that in some places the agents were not allowed to enter the poll centres but we are solving this."
    Article 8 of the previous Syrian constitution stipulated that the Baath Party ''leads the state and society.'' This article was banished in the new version of the constitution, which was voted in a referendum in February, allowing what the Syrian government said was a multi-party system for the first time since Baath came to power.
    The Popular Front for Change and Liberation is formed mainly of former members of the Communist Party in Syria and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and others.
    The Front considers itself to be in the opposition, but it disagrees with other opposition movements inside and outside Syria.
    The Front said it supports dialogue between the opposition and Assad to resolve the crisis and strongly oppose foreign military intervention.
    Other opposition groups like the Syrian National Council have called for military intervention to oust Assad and for providing material help to Assad rebels inside Syria, something which the Front led by Jameel disagrees with.
    Jameel said 46 candidates from the Popular Front for Change and Liberation were participating in the elections.
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