Pencilneckal-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
was a step towards reform, but expressed regret the vote was shunned by opposition groups.
Foreign ministry front man Ramin Mehmanparast told news hounds in his weekly briefing that "the vote is the second step the Syrian government is taking in the path of reform," after Assad's promise of launching reforms.
Syria is the main Middle East ally of the Islamic republic, which has pledged its support to beleaguered Assad who has been facing a deadly revolt against his regime since mid-March 2011.
"Syrian people's participation in the elections shows a great understanding for resolving their internal affairs through peaceful measures," Mehmanparast said.
Syrians voted Monday in the country's first "multiparty" parliamentary elections, dismissed by the opposition as a sham, in five decades against the backdrop of a violent crackdown by Assad's autocratic regime on protesters.
The vote, also criticized by U.N. chief
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, was held despite the unrest sweeping the country, which according to U.N. estimates has left more than 9,000 people killed so far.
People cast their ballots in Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
neighborhoods and in other regions, while in opposition strongholds residents boycotted the vote who instead held protests and a general strike.
Mehmanparast expressed regret about the boycott, and urged world powers and regional countries critical of Assad to let a hard-won truce brokered by international peace envoy, Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo..., be implemented.