BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Thursday slammed the Syrian election as a “farce,” saying the world must come together to end what he described it as the phenomenon of Bashar Assad.
“This election was a farce. It was dark, fabricated, bloody, abhorrent and all of the things that senior officials have described it as,” Hariri said in a statement.
Assad was declared the winner of Tuesday’s presidential election in a landslide, capturing 88.7 percent of the vote.
The Supreme Constitutional Court said the turnout for the vote, which took place only in regime-held areas of the war-ravaged country, was 73.42 percent.
Hariri, one of Assad’s main critics in Lebanon, said only the Syrian president’s allies rejoiced at the victory.
“A few ... of Bashar's partners in death and destruction welcomed the election and fired celebratory gunfire. Other than that, there was an unprecedented consensus that the world had witnessed the worst practice of democracy in history,” he said.
“The world witnessed a democratic lie never seen [before] even in the mightiest of dictatorships ... What human mind can tolerate such a lie that 74 percent of Syrians took part in the election?”
Russia said Thursday that observers had found the presidential election, in which Assad retained power, fair, free and transparent.
“The Syrian people need a global effort to root out the phenomenon of Bashar from political existence ... [and] an international resolution to end the project of destruction in Syria,” he said.
"The survival of Bashar equals war, terrorism and destruction in Syria ... the time has come to stop this tragic masquerade,” Hariri said, urging the world to put an end to the four-year crisis in Syria.
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