The dictator asks for “election”: “Assad lures us with a fake”

“We are a normal country” wants Syria’s dictator Assad to believe with his “election” today. His goal: to finally get money from the EU – for the reconstruction of the infrastructure, which he himself had destroyed, says Middle East expert Carsten Wieland ntv.de. And hopes that the international community does not fall for Assad’s narrative.

ntv.de: 51 Syrians wanted to run against Bashar al-Assad in the presidential elections. Two have been admitted. On what grounds were the 49 others rejected?

Carsten Wieland: Your question comes from the fact that we initially assume that we are dealing with elections and with competition. But that is not the case at all. What is happening today is a presidential affirmation event and not an election at all in the sense in which we would otherwise use the term.

It goes without saying that opposing candidates could not be nominated.

The official justification is as follows: Among other things, the Supreme Court demands that a candidate must have lived in Syria throughout the past ten years. This is no coincidence, because Assad’s war against his own people began ten years ago. Anyone who campaigned against him and was not killed or imprisoned had to flee and therefore cannot meet this condition.

Carsten Wieland is a Middle East expert and long-standing advisor to the UN special envoy for Syria. His book “Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid to Violent Regimes” will be published in June.

The USA and many EU countries have already announced that they will not accept the result of this pseudo-election.

The UN has been calling for fair and free elections for years and is also negotiating with representatives of the regime in Geneva. But these block a result. Assad was last confirmed in office in 2014, with almost 89 percent of the vote. Negotiations have made no headway since then. That is why the dictator now sees no need to legitimize his next term of office other than through a show organized by him.

Then why “elections” at all? Does anyone in Syria believe this theater?

This has many advantages for Assad: On the one hand, he can maintain the appearance of being constitutional. It prescribes elections every seven years, so Assad lets something happen every seven years that confirms him. On the other hand, he can be celebrated as a legitimate president by the loyalists, as Assad’s supporters are called. He will do that again now.

And international? What if hardly any state takes the result seriously?

They are still useful, for example in relation to Russia. Putin has supported Assad so strongly over the years that one can say: Without Russia he would no longer be in office. However, it is now very difficult for the Russians to keep Assad in power. The economic situation is catastrophic, the infrastructure is broken. Assad is failing to lead the country into the future and the West is refusing to finance reconstruction.

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The “vote” staged by Assad is seen as a farce by many countries. Here is a polling station in Damascus.

(Photo: imago images / ITAR-TASS)

But what does Russia long for?

Russia and especially the economically struggling Iran have put so much money into Syria that it is really hurting them financially. That is why they urge the EU to support reconstruction. After Putin enabled Assad to completely destroy his own country, he would now like to have the reconstruction funded by others. But Europe only wants to help under certain conditions. One of them would be for the conflict to be resolved politically and for political reforms to be carried out.

Then the pseudo-elections are a message to the West?

Exactly. It reads, “This is a normal country.”

…. In which elections are held, a ruler legitimized by the people rules and, of course, returning refugees are also welcome?

The more normality is simulated, the greater the pressure on the EU states to finally provide aid without any conditions. With this fake, this narrative “We are a normal country”, Assad lures the EU and wants to put it under pressure – with some success. The European front is crumbling: countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic are leaving, so that the EU no longer speaks with one voice. Denmark is now deporting refugees back to Syria without even having diplomatic relations with Assad. Germany, on the other hand, rejects the so-called “elections” today. The German government does not allow Syrians to vote in the Syrian embassy from here. A very consistent position.

In Germany, however, the defensive stance is also weakening a little. The general ban on deportation has been lifted, each individual case is checked. Individual demands to return to Syria are justified by the fact that there is no more shooting in many areas.

There is no longer shooting everywhere, that’s true. The secret service can get rid of critics differently. He makes them disappear. Anyone who expresses criticism publicly is threatened with prison. There is absolutely no space left for real opposition to form. In one of the rounds of negotiations in Geneva, in which I was advising, an elderly gentleman from Damascus took part on behalf of the opposition. Back in Syria, he had a tragic “traffic accident”.

Would the risk for returnees be calculable at the moment?

Absolutely not. You have no idea how mercilessly this regime has declared war on its own people. During the riots, many injured people did not dare to go to hospital for fear of the secret police. People were taken out of ambulances and dragged off. Doctors who treated protesters have been tortured and detained. They had cared for those in need according to their Hippocratic Oath.

And today?

Several critics of the regime are still in custody. According to recent laws, refugees can easily be expropriated. They are afraid of being expected by warlords who are in charge of the region. That is why the refugees are holding out even in the corrugated iron camps and tents in Jordan and Lebanon: Not because they are doing so well there, but because they still cannot go back home.

Again to the reconstruction: It is not only Russia that is calling for the EU to participate. This is also what the International Red Cross is now calling for. Your argument: We are hindering ourselves with humanitarian aid if we leave the infrastructure broken.

You wouldn’t have to bring drinking water to the people in expensive tankers if you were to repair the destroyed water pipes, yes. I know this position very well.

The West is “caught in this logic,” says the Red Cross.

This is a terrible dilemma that the West is facing. People are suffering terribly right now. The UN estimates that over 12 million Syrians are threatened with hunger. Much of the wastewater is not treated and germs spread. Two thirds of people can no longer meet the most basic needs. A child died of hypothermia because the father had to wait in line for gas too long. Such are the conditions. And here we are not talking about refugee camps, but about normal areas in an area controlled by Assad.

But the EU says no, we are not funding the repairs to the gas pipelines.

Yes, that’s terrible from a humanitarian point of view. People suffer, children with no prospects become easy prey for extremists. And although the international community again pledged more than five billion euros for humanitarian aid at the Brussels donor conference in March, the need is enormous. Also because Assad and his clan see the land as family property and continue to exploit it. But what would the alternative be? To say: Assad hasn’t moved an inch for ten years, and still rules brutally and arbitrarily. But are we still rebuilding what he himself deliberately destroyed? You have to keep that in mind: when Assad took power in 2000, many thought he was the reformer who was bringing about improvements. He made a conscious decision against it and has been waging a brutal war against his own people ever since. Should he be rewarded for it? Should every dictator still be able to destroy his country in the future, knowing full well that the West will rebuild it without any conditions?

Frauke Niemeyer spoke to Carsten Wieland

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