DAMASCUS — Syria has called a presidential election for June 3, preparing the ground for Bashar al-Assad to defy widespread opposition and extend his grip on power days after he said the war was turning in his favor.

A leading Syrian opposition group said the election showed the president was divorced from reality.

Western and Gulf Arab countries that back Assad’s opponents had called plans for the vote a “parody of democracy” and said it would wreck efforts to negotiate a peace settlement.

Assad has not said whether he will stand again, but his allies in Russia and in Lebanon’s Hizbullah movement have predicted he will participate and win.

Announcing the election on state television, the parliamentary speaker, Mohamed Jihad al-Laham, said requests for nomination would be accepted until 1 May. Voting for Syrians outside the country would take place at Syrian embassies on 28 May, he said.

Syria’s parliament set residency rules for presidential candidates in March, a move that would bar many of Assad’s foes who live in exile.

Assad said last week the conflict had reached a “turning point” due to his forces’ military gains against the rebels. 

The Syrian president visited the recently recaptured Christian town of Maaloula, near the capital, on Easter Sunday, in a symbolic move to show the regime’s control over the area.  

Syria had averted a U.S. military strike last year by agreeing to give up its chemical weapons.

However, the head of the global chemical weapons watchdog overseeing the destruction of Syria’s toxic stockpile is considering launching a fact-finding mission on his own initiative to investigate reports of chlorine gas attacks there, sources said.