A spokesman for the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said the Syrian Arab Republic stresses that its decision to hold presidential elections on schedule is a purely sovereign Syrian decision

A spokesman for the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said the Syrian Arab Republic stresses that its decision to hold presidential elections on schedule is a purely sovereign Syrian decision that no country is allowed to interfere in.

Syria has hardly announced the door open for candidacy to presidential elections before the countries involved in the ongoing bloodshed in Syria chimed in, clamoring, as usual, about their rejection of the “illegitimate” step, the spokesman said Wednesday.

The spokesman said in a statement to SANA that these countries, which have long claimed to be defending Syrian people, are now trying to stand in the way of their will.

“If these countries, particularly Western states, claim to be championing democracy, freedom and transparency, then they have to listen to what the Syrians have to say and whom they will choose through the ballot boxes’’ added the spokesman.

The spokesman pointed out that opening door for nomination in Syria depends on the Syrian constitution only and hinges on the will of Syrian people who voted for the constitution.

Commenting on claims that holding elections on schedule will wreck efforts to make Geneva conference a success, the ministry pinned responsibility for disrupting Geneva2 conference on the UN and its envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi-who tends to take sides when he is supposed to be an objective mediator-and, likewise, on the countries sending arms to terrorists in Syria and spurning the demands of the Syrian people.

The spokesman said that “Syria reaffirms that real legitimacy will be determined by the ballot boxes and it is the Syrian people who will choose the one to lead them in the coming stage through pluralistic elections for the first time in its modern history, heedless of all obstacles laid in the way of Syrian people.’’

People's Assembly on Monday announced the door open for candidacy to presidential elections in Syria.

The Assembly set the date for the citizens living in the country on Tuesday, June 3rd, and for citizens abroad on Wednesday, May 28.