Polling stations opened their doors today in the areas controlled by the Syrian regime for the second presidential elections since the revolution, amid international condemnation and widespread international skepticism about their integrity, while the opposition described them as "formalism."

The Syrian News Agency (SANA) announced that the polling stations opened their doors at seven in the morning (04:00 GMT) and that voting will continue until seven in the evening (16:00 GMT), provided that the results will be issued within 48 hours of the closing of the polling stations.

President Bashar al-Assad (55 years) took the phrase "hope for work" as a slogan for his election campaign, after two decades he spent in the presidency when he succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad.

He is being contested by two candidates, former Minister of State Abdullah Salum Abdullah and lawyer Mahmoud Mari, from the internal opposition accepted by the regime, and he previously participated among its representatives in one of the rounds of negotiations sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva.

During a press conference before the elections, Interior Minister Muhammad Khaled Rahmoun said yesterday that the number of people entitled to vote in all of the Syrian regions and outside it exceeds 18 million people.

However, elections will take place today in areas under the control of the regime, which are home to about 11 million people.

According to the Interior Ministry, the number of electoral centers is more than 12 thousand, and the voter is entitled to cast his vote in any center, given that "Syria is one electoral district."

The elections will be absent from the areas controlled by the Kurdish Autonomous Administration in northeastern Syria, and from areas controlled by the Headquarters for the Liberation of Al-Sham and other armed factions in the north of the country.

In front of a polling station in Damascus today (Reuters)

International questioning

Several Western powers questioned the integrity of the elections even before they were held, and Assad's opponents considered them "cosmetic."

The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the United States said in a joint statement that these elections "will not be free or fair."

The statement denounced the Assad regime’s decision to hold the poll outside the framework of the UN Security Council resolution.

The ministers declared their support for the votes of all Syrians, including civil society organizations and the Syrian opposition, who condemned the electoral process as illegal.

In turn, US Republican Senator Jim Risch described the Syrian presidential elections as illegal and taking place outside the supervision of the United Nations, and not subject to transparency and accountability.

Bashar Al-Assad took the phrase "hope for work" as a slogan for his election campaign (Reuters)

International condemnation

For its part, the United Nations confirmed that these elections are not part of the political process that was adopted under Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for holding elections under the supervision of the United Nations.

This was stated by the spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, at a press conference held yesterday evening at the permanent headquarters of the international organization in New York.

The spokesperson was responding to journalists' questions regarding the Secretary-General's position on holding presidential elections in Syria.

Resolution 2254 issued in 2015 calls on all parties to stop any attacks against civilian targets, and also asks the United Nations to bring the two parties together (the regime and the opposition) to enter formal negotiations and hold UN-supervised elections.

During yesterday's anti-Assad gathering and the elections in Azaz, northern Syria (Anatolia)

General strike

In the same context, Al-Jazeera correspondent reported, citing local sources, that the cities of Nawa and Al-Harak, in the southern countryside of Daraa, witnessed a general strike, expressing the refusal of the people of the two cities and their boycott of the regime's elections.

Committees representing civilians in Daraa and Quneitra issued a statement, calling on the international community to oppose the electoral process as illegal.

In the statement, the committees also called for the implementation of the UN decisions related to the political solution in the country.

It is noteworthy that Daraa Governorate, in southern Syria, has been under the control of the regime since mid-2018, after the settlement agreement between the opposition forces and the regime under Russian auspices.