Bravo to the 2.38%

These “elections” are an utter joke. Can’t they at least choreograph it a little better to make it seem less obvious that it’s staged? You know, throw in a couple of extra “candidates” from other “parties” with other “platforms”. That way the Syrian information minister will seem a little more credible when he says hails “the political maturity of Syria and the brilliance of our democracy and multi-party system”.

And who are these 2.38% that didn’t vote for Al-Assad? They have to be some of the bravest people on the planet.

An excerpt from an Al-Jazeera article:

The Syrian president has won 97.62 per cent of the vote in a referendum that handed him a second term in office, officials say.

But the US denounced the poll, in which Bashar al-Assad was the only candidate, for offering no real choice to the electorate.

Al-Assad, 41, was the only person allowed to put his name forward in the run-up to Sunday’s plebiscite, which was boycotted by the opposition and widely regarded as a formality.

Bassam Abdel Majeed, the information minister, declared the results at a news conference.

‘This great consensus shows the political maturity of Syria and the brilliance of our democracy and multi-party system,’ he said.

Read more:

• US criticises al-Assad election win