The Endgame That Wasn’t

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Syrian voters will elect their members of parliament on July 15 – or at least some of them will.

That’s because polls are only open to those voters who live in territory under the control of President Bashar Assad, which is most of Syria – but not all of it.

As a result, the elections arguably will be a sham, according to the Atlantic Council, writing that they are designed to legitimize Assad’s bloodthirsty regime under the Baath Party as slivers of the country remain in revolt against the central government. “The polls will be held again against a backdrop of massive displacement, unresolved conflict, partial occupation, and an intransigent regime,” the American think tank said.

Meanwhile, rebel leaders have called on Syrians to boycott the election, reported Asharq al-Awsat, a pan-Arab newspaper headquartered in London. The rebels now control only a small amount of territory since Assad, with the help of Russia and Iran, largely defeated them in recent years.

As the Voice of America wrote, the Syrian Civil War started in 2011 as a protest against Assad’s rule, then expanded until it consumed the country and region. As many as 600,000 people have died while 13 million are displaced, both within the country and outside of it. Most Arab countries, meanwhile, have abandoned efforts to reach an end to the fighting and welcomed Assad back into the fold.

World Politics Review referred to the situation as Syria’s “never-ending endgame.”

In this endgame, meanwhile, the economic situation remains dire for those who remain in Syria, where nine out of 10 people live below the poverty level: The United Nations says that more than 15 million Syrians, or 70 percent of the total population, need humanitarian assistance.

The economy is in shambles and inflation has raged out of control with the Syrian pound losing 99.64 of its value against the dollar compared with its value pre-2011, according to Manaf Quman, an economics researcher at the Turkey-based Omran Center for Studies: “The value of Syrian currency has become less than it costs to print it.”

“A citizen lives most of the month on aid and money transfers from abroad, at a time when his salary is not enough to cover the costs of the first week of the month,” Quman said.

Karam Shaar, director of the Syria Program at the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks, told Syria Direct that the average Syrian’s living situation is “the worst since the beginning of the 20th century … and the threshold of how bad things get cannot be determined.”

Demonstrations against rising prices and inflation have triggered protests over the past year. It has also fueled emigration.

However, much of the world appears to be tiring of the situation, exhibiting the compassion fatigue that comes with holding out hope for Syria – or hosting its nationals. Recently, Agence France-Presse reported, mobs in central Turkey went on a rampage against Syrian-owned businesses after a Syrian man was accused of harassing a child. Consequently, in Afrin, a city in northern Syria, angry Syrians clashed with Turkish troops. Four died in the violence.

These tensions are likely one reason why Turkish leaders have sought to mend fences with Assad, but US officials have said they won’t accept the Syrian president’s legitimacy until they see him take steps to respect human rights and improve the lives of his people, wrote Rudaw, a Kurdish news broadcaster based in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the search for justice for the victims of the Syrian regime goes on.

French prosecutors also recently asked a court in their country to review an arrest warrant issued for Assad, based on his alleged role in war crimes including chemical attacks against his citizens in 2013, according to Radio France Internationale. The court upheld it.

Mazen Darwish, director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, told Al Jazeera that the decision “shows that there is no immunity when we are talking about crimes against humanity and using chemical weapons against civilians.”