Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 before any poll. The Democratic Arab Socialist Union rejected the legitimacy of the elections and distanced itself from Mahmoud Ahmad Marei, saying he had been expelled from the party in 2013. The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), which controls northeastern Syria, stated “We will not be part of the presidential election process and we will not participate in it.” Intergovernmental organisations The United Nations has said that the elections are not part of the Syrian peace process and that it is not involved in it. Other states France said it opposed the elections in the absence of a credible political solution: "The presidential election scheduled this year will be neither free nor legitimate. It cannot be used as a tool to circumvent this political solution." The United States indicated that it will not recognize the outcome of the elections unless the voting is "free, fair, supervised by the United Nations, and represents all of Syrian society." The State Department said “The proposed Syrian presidential election this year will neither be free nor fair. In this environment, we do not assess this call for elections to be credible.” On election day, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States stated that they do not consider the elections free or fair. "We denounce the Assad regime's decision to hold an election outside of the framework described in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 and we support the voices of all Syrians, including civil society organisations and the Syrian opposition, who have condemned the electoral process as illegitimate." Assad responded by stating that Syria would disregard this statement: the “value of those opinions is zero". Turkey said the elections were not legitimate, emphasising that they deprive almost 7 million Syrians in the diaspora of suffrage. Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that the vote would allow the Syrian people to “choose their future" and "form a government that represents them.” Post-election Syrian opposition The Syrian Negotiation Commission said that the election showed "contempt to the Syrian people": "It's a decision by the government, aided by Russia and Iran, to kill the political process... It's a continuation of tyranny." The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces described the poll as a "theatrical play". Intergovernmental The European Union said the elections met none of the criteria of “a genuinely democratic vote”, as internally