BEIRUT: MP Marwan Hamade denounced Thursday Syrian President Bashar Assad’s inauguration speech as a “tragic comedy,” rejecting the credibility of the Syrian elections and their results.
“The speech is a failed attempt to continue the tragic comedy that Assad had started in the disfigured elections that he had carried out, and that were only conducted in a few areas,” Hamade said in an interview with Radio Orient.
He said the renewal of Assad’s term, and the “failed constitutional theater play” accompanying it, contributed to the “beginning of Assad’s end.”“The speech has no constitutional, sovereignty or legal value,” Hamade added.
Proclaiming the Syrian people winners in a “dirty war” waged by outsiders, Assad was sworn in Wednesday for a third seven-year term despite the bloody civil war ignited by a mass uprising against his rule.
However, the ceremony was moved from its traditional setting at the parliament building in central Damascus, presumably due to security concerns.
“The remarkable fact about Assad’s renewal ceremony is that it didn’t take place at the people’s council as it had traditionally been in the previous terms,” Hamade said.
Separately, Hamade blasted Hezbollah for fighting alongside Syrian regime forces, saying it was transforming Syria into “a new Vietnam."
“Our people, our sons from the south and the Bekaa, are martyred in Syria to protect a dictatorial fascist regime,” he said, adding that Hezbollah's “total obedience” to Iranian orders was inconsistent with its philosophy of resistance and the protection of the people.
Hamade also commented on the local political scene, saying that the Cabinet was being used by March 8 “to cover [Hezbollah’s] actions all over the Middle East.”
