Massive turnout in Syria election was loud shout of victory over terrorists, their sponsors, says analyst

A political commentator has lauded the massive voter turnout in Syria’s presidential election as an outstanding sign and loud cry of victory notched up by people in the war-stricken Arab nation over Takfiri terrorist groups and their sponsors.

“Voters turned out in stunning numbers. Millions are said to have cast their votes. They were gleeful; the atmosphere was triumphant. The massive turnout was a shout of victory over foreign terrorists and the powers that backed them,” Richard Black, a former Republican member of the Virginia State Senate told Press TV in an exclusive interview on Friday.

He added that the election allowed Syrians to symbolically reject the horrors imposed on them by the United States, United Kingdom, France and their regional allies, stressing the latter have been relentlessly seeking to intimidate the Syrian nation by waging a reign of terror for more than a decade.

“The US, the UK, and France have been the unwavering supporters of al-Qaeda-linked terrorists since the moment that the war began [in Syria in March 2011]. To this day, they have been supporting terrorists controlling [Syria’s northwestern] Idlib Province,” the pundit said.

Black went on to dismiss criticism of Syria’s president election, stating that Western powers did not let voters in militant-held parts of Syria head to the polls and cast ballots because “they do not really care about elections or about freedom. Their objective is terror and conquest.”

“The occupying powers never gave a thought to holding elections, because their puppets would have been ousted. They are much too busy looting the wealth of Syrian people than to worry about elections in the areas they rule,” he pointed out.

The analyst also stated that Washington can by no means denounce Syria’s May 26 presidential election, as a large percentage of Americans believe that the 2020 US presidential poll was fraudulent and invalid.

He rejected as “ludicrous” demands by the United States and a number of European nations that Syria’s election should have been convened under UN supervision.

“If the UN needs to conduct elections in Syria, why shouldn’t they supervise them in the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy? By what authority does the UN run the internal affairs of sovereign nations?

“It is ironic that nations working to overthrow Syria’s government with a naval blockade, brutal sanctions, and armies of terrorists are now trying to tell Syrian people how to vote,” Black argued.

“During the 2014 election, foreign powers did everything possible to block Syrians from voting. Just before the election, many countries closed down Syrian embassies to prevent expatriates from expressing their will. The closure of the embassies was orchestrated by the US, which feared that an overwhelming vote in favor of Bashar al-Assad would embarrass the State Department and undermine its campaign against Syria,” the political analyst said.

Black concluded that Syrians have now driven out foreign-backed terrorists from most of their cities and towns, and could vote this time without having to brave explosives sent by Western powers to disrupt their election.

The Syrian parliament announced on Thursday that President Assad won his fourth seven-year term in the 2021 presidential race.

Hamoudeh Sabbagh, the parliament speaker, said that Assad won 95.1 percent of the vote as opposed to 88.7 percent in the 2014 election.

He said that about 14 million of the estimated 18 million eligible voters inside and outside Syria cast their votes, with a turnout rate of 78.64 percent.

Assad’s competitors, former Deputy Cabinet Minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and head of a Syrian opposition party, Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, won 3.3 and 1.5 percent of the vote respectively.