Thousands of Syrians, filling the streets around their embassy in Beirut, turned out to
vote Wednesday in Syria's
controversial presidential
poll being staged as civil war rages in the country. For the early
vote by expats, the Yarzeh district of east Beirut was festooned with Syrian flags and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad, who is expected to cruise to victory in the June 3 election. The yellow flags of Leba**n's Shiite militant movement Hezbollah, a staunch Assad ally in the three-year conflict with rebels, were also prominent. Of the estimated three million
Syrians living abroad, including both refugees and peacetime residents, only around 200,000 were entitled to
vote on Wednesday, in 39
embassies abroad, a foreign ministry source said in Damascus.
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Syrians stream to embassies vote in controversial poll