Operation Ostrava: Month 15, Week 1, Day 1.

Yesterday (7/5/12) voters in Syria went to the polls in their first muli-party Parliamentary elections in over 40 years. However like the February 27th (27/2/12) constitutional referendum which brought about this election the results will be treated with a high degree of scepticism. The security situation which sees troops on the streets on many Syrian cities means that a significant number of voters would not have been able to participate and even if they were the opposition have boycotted the election on principle. Therefore it can not be truthfully said that the results represent the views of all Syrian voters. Also although voters were allowed to vote for party's that aren't the Ba'ath Party 50% of Parliamentary seats were reserved for trade unions linked to the Ba'ath Party making it impossible for a party that isn't the Ba'ath Party to win a majority. Also it takes more then three months to form a fully functioning political party from a standing start.

So although yesterday's election does mark a significant step forward on Syria's path towards democracy it only really serves to highlight the Syrian government's fundamental mis-conception in dealing with the current crisis. They seem to think that all the pressure they've been under recently is the international community trying to liberate the Syrian people and help them move towards democracy. It's not. Instead it is the Gulf Monarchy's trying to create a ring (well horseshoe) of fire around the Arab Peninsula from Somalia through the Sudans, Egypt, Syria, Iraq to Iran. That way the Gulf Monarchs can turn round to their people and the international community and say; "Look, the Arab (and Persian) people can't do democracy so you need to keep nasty b*stards like us in place to keep the region under control."


Edited at around 19:15 on 8/5/12 to add: Elsewhere in the region Israel has cancelled their early September 2012 general election in favour of allowing the Likud Party to join the governing coalition. For now I will hold my peace on what this means. This is because while the pro-Israel lobbies in places like the UK and the USA are running around telling everyone that we've got to bomb Iran and overthrow Assad in the name of Israel the impression I get is that the actual Israel is sitting there in the middle of it rocking backwards and forwards going; "Please stop. Please stop. Please stop." and sadly that's only likely to make the SIA go at it even harder.