Baladi News, Al-Suwayda
"Elect Your candidate for parliament", a silly situation swept through the streets of the city of Al-Suwayda and its countryside these days, considered by all as a farce, where images of candidates spread like wildfire in the streets of the city, resulting in holding the candidates up to ridicule especially in the difficult circumstances Syria is witnessing nowadays.
Too many candidates, but too many lies as well; one of the candidates wrote "My voice is yours", another took many pictures with different poses and attached his campaign with phrases representing him as the people's voice!
Activists in the city of Al-Suwayda expressed to Baladi news their disapproval of such campaigns, saying: "We got used to these lies/bluffs in every election cycle, no one in the city trusts such lies, or even has time to waste to vote for them, aside from the ongoing bloody bath in Syria from east to west."
Mamdouh Al-Atrash, a Syrian artist known for his loyalty to Assad's regime in the city of Al-Suwayda carried on an election propaganda for his brother, who is running for the parliament, by calling younger generation to vote and express their opinion. A new phenomenon practiced by regime artists who are using their popularity in supporting the candidates through paying lip service to the campaign, unaware that they lost the street-credibility, according to private local sources.
"Al-Suwayda is witnessing a suffocating economic and social situation, as many young men emigrated to asylum countries escaping from military service. Queueing up at the gas distribution stations nowadays seem to be more important than going to the polls", according to local activists from Al-Suwaya.
The city of Al-Suwayda witnessed popular protests in which activists expressed the unity of the Syrian people and demanded to live with dignity, anticipating the so-called parliamentary elections. The thing that refers to the increased tensions one day ahead of the elections.
The city has also witnessed many peaceful protests denouncing the electoral campaigns, while civil activists wrote slogans on the walls; "The Parliament of Slaves doesn't represent me."
