- Voters at a polling station in the Maidan district of Damascus were regaled by Damascene sword dancers and Assad chants.
Syria went to the polls Tuesday, despite a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
Pro-government voters stuffed ballot boxes and held rallies outside polling stations as Syrians in regime-held areas of the country cast ballots in an election widely seen as a bid by President Bashar al-Assad to renew his mandate to prosecute the war against his opponents.
Syrians were under pressure to vote. ”I have to vote because otherwise I will lose my government job,” a 50-year-old Homs native told The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Dagher.
Voting began the previous week at 43 Syrian embassies around the world. The embassy in neighboring Lebanon, which is home to more than one million Syrian refugees, remained open past midnight Thursday to accommodate the crowds of voters.
Here are tweets sent by Sam Dagher, who is based full-time in Syria.
The most recent tweets are at the top.
Compiled by Sarah Marshall
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(via WSJ Blogs)
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