Can Free Municipal Elections be organized by a “dictatorship”?

• In the face of the municipal elections of Monday, December 12, Washington’s cue to the press was to support the Syrian National Council’s call for a general strike and for an election boycott. This line has been completely adhered to by both the Western and Gulf media.
To justify its position, the press has chosen to dismiss the importance of these elections.
This rhetoric runs into an obvious contradiction: why would "pro-democracy revolutionaries" be opposed to municipal elections and local democracy? On the other hand, the one thing that does appear to be important is to overthrow the head of the state, including if necessary by flouting the most basic democratic principles.

• China is uncomfortable with her image of supporting a bloody crackdown against a popular revolution, as distilled by the Western media.
Nevertheless, Chinese experts are sticking to their position of "non intervention." They recognize that the Syrian opposition may legitimately have recourse to arms, but do not believe that it enjoys sufficient popular support to be able to win. They are worried about a possible international military intervention outside of a UN mandate, which they would see as a hegemonic war that Russia can not afford to stay out of. It would result in a catastrophe for China: not that the new government would cease to trade with it, but because the entire Middle East would fall into the hands of Islamists.
(See p. 29 and 32).

• After a moment’s hesitation, the French press was in lockstep with its Foreign Minister, accusing Syria of ordering the attack against the French UNIFIL soldiers. It nevertheless recognizes that the charge has not been substantiated.

• The Erdogan government is preparing new "sanctions" against Syria, but the Turkish press underscored that the crisis between the two countries has already destroyed the econnomy of the Turkish border provinces. The Turkish economy, already hard hit by the Libyan war, would be further affected if the Syrian crisis were to continue.

• Frank Gaffney Jr., chairman of the Center for Security Policy, the main lobby of the military-industrial complex, accuses the Obama administration in general and Hillary Clinton in particular of wanting to dissolve the Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to please the Muslims Brothers, so that they may continue to perpetrate their atrocities without being disturbed (see p.16).