Syrian President Bashar Assad cast his vote Wednesday in an election he is certain to win in a town made infamous in a suspected 2018 chemical weapons attack by his army against rebel forces in the country’s still-unresolved civil war.
In a gesture mixing defiance with confidence that his regime will survive, Mr. Assad traveled to the former rebel stronghold of Douma to vote.
An April 2018 chemical attack at the town near Damascus killed 40 to 50 people, humanitarian groups reported. Days later, the U.S., France and Britain launched retaliatory strikes on a string of government-controlled sites across the country. Douma was the site of some of the biggest anti-government protests.
Aided by Russia and Iran, Mr. Assad’s forces have gained the upper hand in the country’s decadelong civil war, leaving rebel forces confined to just a single enclave close to the Turkish border. The war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, driven millions from their homes and decimated Syria’s economy.
The country’s battered democratic opposition is boycotting the presidential vote, and Mr. Assad faces only a token slate of rivals. The regime brushed aside a call for an internationally supervised vote that would have started the process for a new power-sharing agreement and a new constitution.
“Syria is not what they were trying to market, one city against the other and sect against the other or civil war,” Mr. Assad said after casting his ballot, according to the Reuters news agency. “Today we are proving from Douma that the Syrian people are one.”
Mr. Assad’s late father, Hafez Assad, ruled Syria for 30 years, and the son has been in power since 2000. The expected result would give Mr. Assad a seven-year term in office.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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