Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
Jun 10, 2014, SSM
The Syrian election has indirectly exposed and confirmed a surprising statistic that shows how badly the anti-Assad fighters are losing and how hopeless their cause is.
It is of course no surprise that Assad won big in the first open and contested Syrian presidential election in memory, winning 88% of the total. Whether you believe that the vote was rigged or that the Syrian people overwhelmingly love their president, the margin was almost embarrassing. In the days before the election, the Syrian street joked that the votes for the challengers might need to be padded.
The surprise is the number of Syrians that voted – and those that did not . A total of 15.84 million Syrians age 18 or older were eligible to vote in the election. Of these, 11.63 million – equal to 73.7% – actually did.
That’s an enviable turnout anywhere, but astonishing under the current conditions in Syria. The Syrian obsession to vote is a great story. Syrian expatriates and refugees besieged their embassies when they could, and returned to Syria – sometimes traveling 10,000 miles or more – when they couldn’t. But that is not the biggest surprise.
The biggest surprise is not who voted or how many, but rather who did not. They are the 4.2 million difference between the numbers of eligible and actual voters. Who are they?
Many are living in other countries. Refugees amount to 2.7 million, according to the UN, of whom a third are probably children, leaving 1.8 million eligible to vote. The Syrian Foreign Ministry also estimates the number of expatriate Syrian citizens abroad at 3 million, of whom 2 million would also be eligible by age. That’s 4.7 million potential voters abroad. Of these, no more than 200,000 voted at their embassies – partly because some countries (e.g. the US, Canada and Australia) have suspended diplomatic relations and others (e.g. France, Germany, Belgium, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates) prevented them from voting. Many expatriate Syrians therefore traveled by air and land to Syria in order to vote, an incredible and inspiring migration, but still not significantly affecting the total by more than a fraction of a percent.
Clearly, the number of non-voting Syrians abroad is therefore very close to the total number of non-voting Syrians in the entire election, even allowing for an exaggerated vote count and a less than 100% turnout in government areas. These numbers explain the total of non-voting Syrians without even counting the population in areas of Syria occupied by anti-Assad forces.
Clearly, the number of non-voting Syrians abroad is therefore very close to the total number of non-voting Syrians in the entire election, even allowing for an exaggerated vote count and a less than 100% turnout in government areas. These numbers explain the total of non-voting Syrians without even counting the population in areas of Syria occupied by anti-Assad forces.
This is exactly the point. The election statistics demonstrate that nearly all of the population in the “rebel” areas have fled, mostly to government areas, but some to neighboring countries. This safely puts to rest the notion that anti-Assad forces rule over more than a minuscule fraction of the population. The inflated figures propagated by mainstream journalists and U.S. government officials to the effect that 40% of the Syrian population is living in “rebel” areas are obtained by applying pre-conflict population statistics to the geographic areas under the control of anti-regime groups. This is a patently absurd formula, given the displacement of a third of the Syrian population. In addition, only the most delusional propagandist would claim that any Syrians at all are fleeing from government to anti-regime areas.
In fact, one of the tactics of the Syrian military seems to be to allow the anti-regimists to hold a territory long enough for the civilians to decide to leave. The army then lays siege, causing the remaining civilians to make the same decision (unless held as human shields by the fighters). When the only remaining population is the fighters themselves, the fighters either surrender or the army destroys them by means of weapons like “barrel bombs” that cause the fewest government casualties, as compared with street fighting or the danger of entering boobytrapped buildings. These tactics, designed to spare civilian lives, are what earn the regime the title of ruthless murderer in the western press.
It is time to pay attention to what the Syrian people are saying. They voted with their feet by fleeing the occupied parts of the country and moving to government-held territory. Now they have gone to the polls by the millions, affirming much more than their self-determination and their choice for president. They have shown us by their numbers that the attempt to destroy Syria is bankrupt and doomed to failure.
Paul Larudee is a founding member of the Syria Solidarity Movement. This piece is a revision of one sent to Counterpunch from Syria after completing an assignment as an election observer.
