Despite 10 years of civil war, Assad set to win election

Campaign posters for Bashar al-assad line the streets of Damascus, alongside those for two obscure rivals, but no one really doubts that Wednesday’s election will extend his presidency despite 10 years of war that has left Syria in ruins.

Ruled by his family for five decades, Syria is now barely recognisable from the nation that Assad, now 55, took over in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-assad.

Assad, who heads the Syrian Ba’ath Party, is expected to secure a comfortable win in the three-way contest also featuring Abdullah Sallum Abdullah of Socialists Unionists Party and Mahmoud Ahmad Marei of Democratic Arab Socialist Union Party.

When Assad began, the young eye doctor promised a shift from his father’s iron grip. But reforms were swiftly buried and protests against his authoritarian rule erupted in 2011 as the Arab Spring swept across the region, turning into a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million from their homes, about half the population.

Assad has retaken control of much of his nation, where some voters will cast ballots this week at polling stations surrounded by bombed out buildings. But he has achieved this only with the decisive military help from Russia and Iran.

“If war imposes itself on our agenda, it doesn’t mean to prevent us from doing our duties,” he said on the Facebook account for his campaign, which has the slogan “Hope through work”.

But, for swathes of the country, their employment barely buys enough food. “Can you believe a shawerma costs nearly half my salary?” said Ali Habib, 33, saying it cost 20,000 Syrian pounds, while his monthly wage as a teacher in a state school is 50,000 pounds, or just over $16 at the unofficial rate.

Some Syrians say the vote aims to tell the US, Europe and others that Assad is unbroken and Syria still functions, even amid pockets of fighting, mostly in the north. “These elections are aimed at the West, taking the pattern of Western-style elections in one way or the other to give an ‘I am like you’ message,” said Maan Abdul Salam, who heads Syrian think-tank ETANA. AMMAN: