Charter meant to "end decades of one-party rule" dismissed as meaningless by opposition amid government crackdown.
Vote counting after Syria's referendum on a new constitution is under way with the results expected on Monday, but the opposition, which boycotted the exercise, and Western nations have labeled the vote a sham.

More than 14 million people over the age of 18 were eligible to vote at 13,835 polling stations on Sunday in a ballot that could theoretically end five decades of one-party rule.

But with many parts of the country reeling from weeks of military assault, and army defectors engaged in a guerrilla campaign against loyalist troops, it was unclear how the ballot could prove to be convincing.

Western nations, including Canada and Germany, said the referendum was a farce.

"This is a dubious ploy by the [Bashar al] Assad regime to delay the inevitable while continuing its slaughter of Syrian civilians. Assad's 'referendum' is a farce. It is also too little, too late," John Baird, the Canadian foreign affairs minister, said in a statement, referring to the president.

"Assad must go. A new day must dawn for the Syrian people," Baird added.

Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, also called Sunday's vote "a farce".

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, urged Syrians who still support the president to abandon him.

'Meaningless' vote

The Syrian president had unveiled the proposed new national charter earlier this month in his latest reform pledge since protests erupted last March.

The resulting violence has left more than 7,600 people dead, monitors say. Syria blames the violence on "armed terrorist gangs".

Assad has promised to hold parliamentary elections within 90 days if voters approve the new constitution. However, the decision to hold the referendum has failed to ease global pressure on his government.

A security expert explains why it would be nearly impossible to expect a free and fair election in Syria.

Louay Safi, a leading member of the Syrian National Council, an opposition group, said the new constitution would be "meaningless" in bringing about change because it was being created by a government that continued to violate its own laws in its campaign to crush the uprising.

"The major problem is that the government is violating the current constitution," Safi told Al Jazeera. "What we fear is if the regime stays intact, the new constitution will be meaningless.

"So the real step to have a new constitution is to have a new or transitional government."

In Damascus, the Syrian capital, and its suburbs, opposition activists voiced similar skepticism over the vote.

"This was a constitution made to Bashar's tastes and meanwhile we are getting shelled and killed," a protester said.
"More than 40 people were killed today and you want us to vote in a referendum? ... No one is going to vote."

Raging violence

The referendum took place as government security forces shelled residential areas in Bab Amr neighborhood in the central city of Homs for the 26th day in a row, reportedly killing at least nine people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based opposition group.

The group said that defected soldiers had also killed at least four government troops in the city.

The SOHR said that eight civilians and 10 members of the government's security forces were killed elsewhere in the country, bringing the total death toll for Sunday to 31.

Intense violence was reported in the province of Deraa, where the uprising first began last March.

One-party rule

The charter, framed by a committee of 29 people appointed by Assad, would drop the highly controversial Article 8 in the existing charter, which makes the Baath party "the head of state and society".

That would effectively end the monopoly on power the Baathists have enjoyed since they seized power in a 1963 coup that brought Assad's late father, Hafez, to power.

Instead, the new political system would be based on "pluralism," although it would ban the formation of parties on religious lines.

Under the new charter, the president would maintain his grip on broad powers, as he would still name the prime minister and government and, in some cases, could veto legislation.

Article 88 states that the president can be elected for two seven-year terms, but Article 155 says these conditions only take effect after the next election for a head of state, set for 2014.

This means that Assad could theoretically stay at the helm for another 16 years.

This is Syria's third referendum since Assad inherited power from his late father. The first installed him as president in 2000 with an official 97.2 per cent in favor. The second renewed his term seven years later with 97.6 percent in favor.

PHOTO CAPTION

Syrians soldiers vote during a referendum on a new constitution at an undisclosed location in this handout photograph taken on February 26, 2012.

Al-Jazeera