Syria candidate: Presidential elections could curb bloodshed

Maher Hajjar, the candidate for the Syrian presidential elections, believes that the June 3 vote would be conducive in decreasing the bloodshed in the conflict- stricken country. "The people's participation in the elections would largely decrease the bloodshed in Syria, and the higher rate of participation in the elections, the less blood would be spelled," Hajjar told Xinhua in an interview. He said the amount of pain the Syrian people have endured as a result of the brutal war would push them to participate with an " unprecedented turnout, because all of the Syrians have been affected by this war so they will be going to the ballot boxes to say enough with the prejudice and brutality and enough with the bloodshed." Hajjar was the first to run for the contentious presidential race, the first multi-candidate vote in Syria's modern history. The 46-year-old lawmaker of the northwestern province of Aleppo is competing with ex-minister, Hassan Nouri and incumbent President Bashar al-Assad for the top post. Defending the vote, which has been criticized by the West and the opposition as "farce," Hajjar said "I don't think that the results of the elections are predetermined. It's totally not predetermined and hence, all options are open." Asked about his winning chances in the face of Assad, whose family has ruled Syria over the past 44 years, Hajjar said his winning chances in the elections are linked to his ability to convince the Syrian people with his political program and vision. Hajjar noted that the important thing is respecting the will of the Syrian people, lamenting, however, his inability to reach for the people trapped in rebel-held areas. One of Hajjar's main slogans in his campaign is "Change is a necessity" and when asked to elaborate on this point, Hajjar said the real change can be achieved by removing the reasons behind the crisis. Recent reports said 10 out of 21 Arab countries as well as the United States, France, Britain and Germany are not going to allow Syrians on their territories to participate in the voting, which is slated for May 28 for oversees Syrians. Opposition groups inside and outside Syria have criticized the decision to hold the presidential elections amidst the current civil war in the country, which has killed more than 150,000 people and displaced one third of its population in a grinding war between government troops and armed militant groups. According to the official SANA news agency, Hajjar obtained a diploma in Linguistic Studies from Aleppo University before he joined the Syrian Communist Party in 1984.