Democracy Syrian-Style

Senior government officials vote under the watchful portraits of President Bashar Al-Assad and his late father, Hafez.

Is there any reason to pay attention to the parliamentary election in Syria?

Not if you like your elections to be exercises in representative democracy. For all the hoopla about transparent plastic ballot boxes and indelible ink to prevent voter fraud, there is little doubt that the contest -- which began today and continues tomorrow -- will produce a Ba'athist victory. Not only were two-thirds of the seats reserved for members of the Ba'ath-led list, but all independent candidates had to be approved by the government of President Bashar Al Assad, which has jailed opposition parliament members for good measure.

But what's been interesting about these elections is how the Syrian government has been marketing them: as Syrian-style democracy, rather than American-style democracy. According to that narrative, American democracy arrives by gunpoint and ends with car bombs and sectarianism. But Syrian democracy is peaceful and strengthens national unity. "These elections show the world that Syria wants peace... not American militarism and Israeli apartheid," said Bouthaina Shaaban, Minister of Expatriates, as she voted today.

How much appeal does Syrian-style democracy have? Probably not much. Turnout was thin at the polling places I visited, except when high officials came to cast their ballots. At one school building where a crowd of around 100 party supporters waited for the vice president to arrive, only about 120 people had actually voted by early afternoon.

But there are not a lot of other choices. One look at what's happening next door in Iraq is enough to sour most Syrians on political experiments. As an LA Times reporter recently returned from Baghdad said to me today: "It's strange covering an election without having to worry about getting shot." Unfortunately, that's the lesson that Syrians may have learned too: real elections equal real violence.

If Syrians have few options than to stick with the government they know, the United States and its allies in the Middle East also have few points of leverage over the Syrian government. They want the Assad regime to stop supporting anti-Israeli terror groups such as Hamas and Hizballah, and to stop trying to regain their lost hegemony over Lebanon. But what can they do? If Israel leveled the country in a military strike, or if the US got a UN tribunal to haul President Assad off to court for the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, just who would they get to run this place? Paul Bremer? The sorry state of democracy is this regime's best defense against hostile foreign powers. As far as Syria is concerned, it's Bashar or bust.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Damascus