The Supreme Judicial Committee for the Syrian Elections announced this morning, Wednesday, the opening of ballot boxes in front of voters in all electoral centers to choose their candidate for the post of President of the Republic.

Polling stations opened their doors in areas controlled by government forces in Syria, on Wednesday, for presidential elections, the second since the outbreak of the devastating conflict more than a decade ago, that would grant President Bashar al-Assad a fourth term for an additional 7 years.

And the official Syrian News Agency (SANA) announced that the polling stations opened their doors at 07:00 local time (04:00 GMT), while the Syrian TV showed footage of long lines of voters forming in front of them in a number of regions of the country.

Voting will continue until 19:00 (16:00 GMT), with results to be issued within 48 hours of closing the ballot boxes.

Bashar al-Assad, 55, took the phrase "hope for work" as a slogan for his election campaign, in an attempt to highlight his future role in the reconstruction phase, after two decades he spent in office.

In addition to Assad, the two candidates running for the presidential race are the former Minister of State, Abdullah Salloum Abdullah (2016-2020), who was a deputy twice, and lawyer Mahmoud Mari, from the internal opposition accepted by the regime, and he previously participated among its representatives in a round of negotiations sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva, which was marked by failure.

The United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy said in a statement on Tuesday evening that they would like to make it clear that the presidential elections in Syria will neither be free nor fair.

Photo by Reuters