Daraa: Syria regime annulates election centers in hotspot areas

The Syrian regime decided to annulate electoral centers in hotspot areas in southern Daraa province that lack security detachments or located as Military points and responsible for protecting these centers, a local monitoring group said Friday.

The Ahrar Horan gathering said that a delegation of notable figures from the town of Busra al-Harir, met with the military commander of the 175th Division where they urged avoid any tensions in the cradle of the Syrian revolution over the upcoming 26th presidential elections.

Despite a three-year-old ceasefire deal in southern Syrian, scattered clashes are still being reported.

Local activists said rebel group accounts have threatened to attack the electoral centers.

The Syrian higher constitutional court on Monday selected two obscure figures to appear on ballots standing against President Bashar al-Assad which the West rejects as a farce that will hurt diplomatic efforts to end the civil war.

Assad, who took power in 2000 on the death of his father who ruled for 30 years, has regained control of most of his country after 10 years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and drove more than half the population from their homes.

Damascus views the election, for what would be Assad's fourth seven-year term, as the governing system functioning normally despite the war. The opposition and Western countries view it as a farce to keep Assad in power indefinitely and head off negotiations to end the conflict.

Top U.N. officials said this month said the vote would not fulfil Security Council resolutions which call for a political process to end Syria's conflict, a new constitution, and free elections administered under U.N. supervision.

Assad has taken measures in recent months to ease public dissatisfaction fed by anger over eroding living conditions and a plunging currency, including raising state salaries, cracking down on currency speculators and bringing the official exchange rate closer into line with the black market.