Presidential Candidate Hajjar: Syria Battling Foreign Powers Targeting Syrian People

 DAMASCUS, (ST)-Syria is battling foreign powers targeting all the components and sects of the Syrian people, Presidential Candidate Maher Hajjar has stressed.

Interviewed by the Syrian Alikhbaria Syria TV yesterday to talk about his electoral statement, Hajjar said he decided to nominate himself to the post of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic because “the people need a new political view and a new concept in political relations.”

“The terrorism striking Syria, is one of the reasons behind my candidacy, Hajjar added.

On the economic side, Hajjar said the core economic problem in Syria is the economic policies adopted since mid 1990s and which was based on an old-fashioned European economic mentality.

He affirmed the need to depend on national potentials to build Syria.

“It is wrong to think that Syria can’t live without foreign investments, because in the 1882, when there wasn’t a single dollar in the Syrian Central Bank, many important investment projects were used to be carried out,” Hajjar said.

On the principle of social justice, Hajjar asserted that “Syria is a national state which never ruled by any non national system and this is what distinguishes Syria from other countries of the region.”

There are great national tasks connected with independent political decision and achieving social justice, they won’t be achieved without just distribution of resources, without fighting corruption and without fair distribution of wages and revenues, Hajjar added.

“A strong state can’t be built except through carrying out giant industrial and reconstruction projects that meet people’s needs and provide job opportunities,” he stressed, calling for uprooting corruption.

The presidential candidate held the internal and foreign forces involved in the war on the Syrian people responsible for the displacement of the Syrians from their houses.

“All the Syrians are affected by terrorism and solution can’t be attained unless they are unified against terrorism and unless they launch national dialogue,” he said.

Earlier, Hajjar announced his election program in which he specified Syria’s future as he sees.

At the international level, Hajjar’s program focused on establishing strong relations with the world countries based on respecting international laws and human values. The states of BRICS Group and Shanghai agreement as well as national and social libration movements and all the countries which call for cooperation and fraternity among people of the world and which advocate international peace and security will top Syria’s list of international relations, according to Hajjar.

At the Arab and regional level, Hajjar urged reformulating the project of Arab national liberation movement based on “complete boycott of the Imperialist-Zionist project in the region and complete boycott of Arab agent reactionary regimes and on building new national secular democratic regimes that embody the aspirations of their peoples.”

According to Hajjar, Arab national liberation movements should spare no effort to liberate the occupied Arab territories, establish a sovereign Palestinian state with al-Quds as a capital, guarantee the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, support the national resistance in Palestine and Lebanon with all political and military means and enhance common Arab action.

At the Syrian level, Hajjar’s program focused on national, economic and social axes and called for “Syria without blood, destruction and vandalism”.

Hajjar affirmed commitment to the legacy of the Syrian national policy and to developing this policy in order to achieve new national tasks and help the Syrian state lead Arab national liberation movements.

In the economic and social fields, Hajjar promised to build a new social and economic system based on achieving as high growth rate as possible and as deep social justice as possible. He supports adopting a five-year plan which aims to score exceptional growth rates and is able to achieve reconstruction and build resistant economy that is able to cope with the national and social tasks of the state.

He affirmed that he seeks uprooting corruption and restoring what has been stolen from the Syrian people.

Hajjar stressed in his program that he will seek a general amnesty that ends the suffering of the last three years and use an iron fist against all who dare to harm the sovereignty of the state and violate its laws. He also stressed the state’s keenness to continue supporting the displaced and terrorism-affected citizens and to press ahead with reconstruction. 

H. Mustafa