Presidential Candidate al-Nouri to Syrian TV: Syrian People Interact Positively with Upcoming Elections

DAMASCUS, (ST)-The Syrian TV yesterday interviewed presidential candidate, Dr. Hassan Abdullah al-Nouri to talk about his electoral statement and explain its items to the public opinion.

 Al-Nouri said that the Presidential elections in Syria, which have been the first of their kind since the country’s independence, “are to be held under the new constitution and in a democratic and pluralist atmosphere with which the Syrian people interact positively.”

“Syria after elections will be different from the one before, because the presidential elections in the country will mark a new era in Syria based on deeper democratic basis,” said al-Nouri, expressing hope that his electoral statement will embody the aspirations of the Syrian people.    

The candidate, who said that he had a strategic view to lead the country, affirmed that he and the other two candidates, Dr. Bashar Al-Assad and Mr. Maher Abdul Hafeez Hajjar, share a common view on certain issues, but have different stances on some other files.

“I have the ability to deal effectively with the homeland’s issues, but no one can work alone,” he said, pointing out that he needs the support of the great Syrian people to help him go ahead in the path of reform, development and prosperity and find a safe way out of the ongoing crisis.

“My electoral statement focuses on six strategic points; keeping Syria’s national principles, including national unity and territorial integrity, and preserving the state’s current distinguished constitution,” al-Nouri said.

He added that the Syrian Arab Army “is a great national army as it has protected the homeland from the hugest terrorist aggression and because it is the real guarantor of national peace and of Syria’s safety against any foreign attacks or internal vandalism.” 

 He affirmed the need to fight all forms of terrorism which is an extraordinary phenomenon in Syria and is very strange to the Syrian society.

 “We, as presidential candidates, share a common stance on loving Syria and on fighting and uprooting terrorism, whether that created in Syria or that infiltrating across the borders,” al-Nouri asserted.

He pointed out that the foreign policy file is so complicated and that he doesn’t want bad relations with any country in the world because international relations are the main source of strength in the coming era, but, according to him, that doesn’t mean to forgive or deal with certain governments like the Turkish current government of the Justice and Development Party which have backed terrorists and committed so many crimes against the Syrians.

He condemned the Qatari and Saudi involvement in supporting terrorism in Syria and slammed the stances adopted by France and Germany against the Presidential elections in Syria.

“Preventing the Syrian community in France and Germany from voting in presidential elections is a big scandal and a political farce,” he clarified.

In the economic side, al-Nouri called for adopting the smart free economy to develop and modernize the country’s economic society, pointing out that the strategic economic partnership between the public and private sectors as well as the public sector’s interaction with the free economy are key elements of success and development.”

“We, in Syria, have achieved a successful institutional and political reform, but failed to reactivate the economic, social, cultural, educational and judicial reform,” he said.

“No one will be a looser in these elections…all of us are winners, because the goal of who ever becomes a president is to implement the common national strategic views to build a strong social and economic fiber,” al-Nouri said, urging all the Syrians to go to the ballot boxes and vote to whoever they choose.

H. Mustafa