Syria's government said voters turned out in large numbers today for a parliamentary election it sees as central to its reform programme but opposition supporters denounced the exercise as a sham and reported more fighting between rebels and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
In Washington, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the unrelenting bloodshed "totally unacceptable and intolerable."
Mr Ban said it was a priority for the United Nations to deploy a mission to supervise a ceasefire as soon as possible and he called on all factions to stop the violence.
The chairman of Syria's Higher Committee for Elections, Khalaf al-Azzawi, said on state television that voting was proceeding "normally and quietly" across the country, which has been gripped for 14 months by the uprising against Dr Assad's rule.
State news agency SANA reported a big turn-out. Witnesses in Damascus said voting appeared to be patchy. In one polling station, authorities said 137 people voted in the first three hours while foreign journalists saw only three cast ballots there over 40 minutes.
"All of this is a theatre show. The candidates are businessmen and pawns of strong people in power," one man, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters near a polling station in the capital.
A shopkeeper across the road from the booth, said at first that the weather was too hot to vote. When pressed, he added: "I just want to say: with all this blood, what do you think will fix it? Elections? No."
Some of those who did vote said they saw it as a chance to end the crisis, in which 9,000 people have been killed by Dr Assad's forces, according to the United Nations. The government says 2,600 security personnel have been killed by opposition forces.
Reem al-Homsi, a recent university graduate, said she voted because she wants what is best for her country. "I want a normal life and I want a job," she said
Violence persisted across the country between forces loyal to Dr Assad and rebels fighting to end four decades of dynastic rule by his family.
In northern Idlib province, residents reported gunfire and explosions and in the city of Hama rebels and soldiers clashed early today, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, three dissidents were killed in a dawn raid by government troops, the Observatory added, underlining the challenge of holding a credible poll and complicating the task of UN observers monitoring a ceasefire declared on April 12.
Reuters