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Wednesday April 13th, the Syrian people in unprecedented numbers went to the polls and cast their ballots in 7000 polling stations in the 13 provinces the Assad government controls. Turm-out was so high that polls stayed open 5 hours longer to accommodate everyone wishing to vote. . According to figures tabulated by Syria's Higher Judicial Committee for Elections, 11,341 candidates contested the election.
These elections however are taking place at the same time as the first round of Geneva based peace talks thereby contradicting and complicating a timetable for political transition insisted upon by the US. As a result a number of Western powers, most notably Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States have been rejecting the election results as illegitimate.
ON this week's Global Research News Hour we speak with author and award-winning Independent journalist Stephen Lendman about the distorted media coverage of the Syria conflict. We also hear from scholar Tim Anderson, the author of The Dirty War On Syria who was in Damascus at the time of the elections, about the elections, the ceasefire and peace talks and the broader geopolitics in play.
Interviews by Michael Welch
The audio from the Tim Anderson interview may be a little difficult to understand in places, owing to poor telephone connections.
