Will The Millions Of Syrian Refugees Be Eligible To Vote?

[-Talbot-]

http://news.sky.com/story/1575814/assad-ready-to-stage-presidential-elections

[anotheoldgit]

If they return to Syria, I imagine.

[Peter Pedant]

yes but they would have to register
erm follow local syrian law
or go back home and vote there

really has to comply with local law (hahaha)
but you did ask
Oz for example fines those who dont vote
and I thnk they have to go down to Oz House to do so

Zim's electoral law ( hahaha do they have any ? Laws I mean )
gives the all powerful Prez power to deprive nationality for those who dont vote - anyway it was designed to disenfranchise the opposition such as it is ) and that will have to be Done Again like the rest of the country really as it is against International Law to deprive s/o of their citizenship unless they have another to go to ( nationality I mean )

Bit of an international law answer
but it IS sunday morning and I am not goinng to church

[-Talbot-]

Well if it runs along the lines of the last Syrian election ... what is the point?

[ichkeria]

No point whatever.
This is all such a game: Russia appears to "persuade" President Assad to bow to the will of the people. "Reluctantly", Assad agrees. There will then follow another farcical election, which will be touted by Assad and Russia as a "mandate" for continuing to bomb the bejasus out of Assad's opponents.

[mikey4444]

I agree Talbot...what would be the point !

Assad has a reputation of winning with huge majorities, despite there being considerable opposition to his blood-thirsty rule. How will people vote if they are not willing to go back to Syria and risk being killed by this butcher ?

[mikey4444]

ichkeria...farce is the exact word I would use. This is all about Putin, using Assad like a puppet, in order to make the free world believe he is some kind of wonderful statesman !

[ichkeria]

Yes mikey and it has happened before:
remember back to the chemical weapons alarm. The US, the UK etc suddenly, but rather half-heartedly, thought it was time to "act". While the politicians in the west were fretting and fussing, President Putin appeared to persuade Assad to give up his chemical weapons, at which point the west dropped the idea of intervention like a hot brick, and helped to oversee the apparent dismantling of Assad's chemical arsenal, while at the same time he stepped up the bombardment of both military and civilian targets with "conventional" weapons. That episode did a lot to harden the attitude of many Syrians not only to the government, but to the west.

[Gromit]

The 2014 Presidential elections were extended to refugee camps putside Syria itself. But opposition groups, home and abroad, boycotted the vote.

I assume the Russians want this to add some legitimacy to their involvement in the country.

Assad will certainly win.

[Gromit]

Ich,
And what really happened was that Obama (and his puppet Cameron) wanted to intervene to make sure Assad was beaten, and the Russians forced out of Syria (they have a naval base).
The Chemical weapons was a pretext for joining the war. Unfortunately, after the non existant WMDs in Iraq, the US and UK politician demanded proof this time.

That delayed the push. UN inspectors went looking for evidence, and found both sides had used chemical weapons. Parliament and Congress failed to back Cameron and Osborne. And not much was heard of chemical weapons again in the war.

[ToraToraTora]

apparently Robert Mugabe is the consultant.

[mikey4444]

LOL TTT ! I wonder how long that 'orrible old tw6t is going to hang on ?

My best guess is that when he finally goes, we can expect a civil war to break out in Zimbabwe.

[youngmafbog]

The problem is that removing any tyrant usually results in civil war due to the power vacuum.

Would any successor be any better than Assad? Probably not and if ISIS took the opportunity then it would be far worse. The Middle East is not the West and we should not treat it as such.

[ichkeria]

Chemical weapons were a pretext for joining the war indeed, but as I point out above, the intention to join in was very half-hearted. And "joining in" indeed, would not have been a good idea. But the point is that Putin skilfully used the fuss about the weapons to create a false scenario that involved Assad giving up chemical weapons he'd hardly been using anyway. Meanwhile, he stepped up his genocide.

[ichkeria]

It's gone beyond the "removing a tyrant" stage ymb. It'd plain that Assad can have no long term role in Syria, but what is desperately needed is a ceasefire, That seems a remote prospect given the number of different factions involved.
Ceasefires only happen when enough sides see that there is no point in fighting any more. In fact, before Putin's intervention the Syrian army HAD started agreeing ceasefires as they were on their last legs
One thing is plain: an election at this point is rather pointless, even if there was some chance of it being a fair one, which of course there isn't

[Gromit]

The UK and US have insisted that Assad must go. Perhaps this is just a signal to the West that the Russians have no intention of replacing Assad, which has been one of their key demands. It also says the Russians are calling the shots and that the US are frozen out.

[youngmafbog]

//The UK and US have insisted that Assad must go.//

Fine, I'd be happy for that BUT, who would replace him?

[naomi24]

^Who indeed?

[ichkeria]

Russia as I said before could do a lot of good in Syria if they were minded to.
Use their influence on Assad, influence that no other country has. Instead they are just using him to further their own ends.

[Gromit]

Ichkeria

And the US and UK involvement is a purely altruistic one ?

As has been said a million times, Russia's interest is maintaining its naval base in the Mediterranean. If Syria didn't have a coastline the Russians would not be interested.