DISINFO: The West is interfering in the Syrian elections by not recognising them
SUMMARY
The US is interfering in the Syrian elections. Without waiting for election day, the US and its European allies affirmed that the election won’t be free nor fair. In a joint declaration, the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US called the international community to reject what they labelled as an “attempt of the Al Assad regime to regain legitimacy without ending its serious human rights violations”. If that is not interference, then what is interference?
What we are observing here is Western ‘democracy’ in action. To understand what they want for Syria, it is enough to look at what they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and many other countries. They call themselves defenders of rights and freedoms while they kill people all over the world. They funded and continue funding terrorism in countries like Syria. It is proven that extremists have the support of the US and its Western allies.
RESPONSE
This disinformation narrative appeared around the presidential election in Syria on 26 May 2021.
Presidential elections in Syria were announced on 18 April and held on 26 May. On 3 May, the Constitutional Court announced that it had accepted only three candidates (including Bashar al-Assad) and rejected 48 candidacies for “failing to meet constitutional and legal requirements”.
Briefing the UN Security Council on 26 May, Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen said that the elections were “not part of the political process called for in resolution 2254” and, as such, he reminded the Council that he did not have the mandate to become involved in the presidential election. Resolution 2254, which was adopted unanimously in 2015, calls for “free and fair elections, pursuant to [a] new constitution, to be…administered under supervision of the UN”.
The EU considers that the elections undermine efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Syrian conflict. It cannot lead to any measure of international normalisation with the Syrian regime. The political process must be fully inclusive to ensure that all segments of Syria’s society are involved in shaping the country’s future unity and reconciliation.
See other examples in our database, such as claims that the EU doesn’t want Syrian refugees to return, that the West sponsored civil war in Syria and its sanctions are causing a humanitarian disaster, that the EU wants a divided, starved and weak Syria, that sanctions against Syria are crimes against humanity and chemical attacks don’t exist, that the West encouraged the creation of the Islamic State, who are its mercenaries, or that there is no evidence that Russian airstrikes killed civilians and that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons.