Homs, Syria (CNN) -- The embattled Syrian president announced a constitutional referendum Wednesday as his forces pummeled Homs and other towns where people cried out for his regime to end.
President Bashar al-Assad set a February 26 date for the vote on a draft constitution, hailed by the his government as an important reform initiative. But analysts and demonstrators sloughed off the effort as "window dressing" and the latest in a series of superficial measures undertaken to mollify his critics over the last 11 months.
Members of a committee tasked with drafting the document "reiterated their keenness on a constitution that allows ... public freedoms and political plurality in a way to lay the foundation for a new stage that will enrich Syria's cultural history," the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
Former Syrian lawmaker George Jabbour said "clause 8 of the new draft of the constitution is the essential point" of the document. It "allows a multi-party system as opposed to the Baath party being the leading party of the society and the state as stipulated in the current constitution." The Baath party rules Syria.
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Jabbour said "special committees will be formed to look into the licensing of new parties in line with the new constitution."
As for presidential elections, they "will be competitive since there is no leading party anymore, and all the parties' candidates are eligible provided their candidacy is endorsed by at least thirty-five members of parliament," Jabbour said.
Also, the draft forbids the creation of any political activity, or parties, or political gatherings based on religion, ethnicity, tribe or region. It forbids discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, or color.
Early in the uprising, there were calls for reform, but they have been overshadowed by exhortations for al-Assad's ouster. Shadi Hamid, director of research for the Brookings Doha Center, said al-Assad has been talking up reforms but "it's a little bit too late."
"It's not so much the message, but the messenger," he said.
Andrew Tabler, Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, calls the document "window dressing," citing the banning of many forms of parties and the fact that government permission is needed to form a party.
"It's not going to change the fact that it's a minority-dominated situation," he said. "It will remain a presidential system with powers vested in the hands of the president."
Tabler said al-Assad is using this "tactic to get people to leave the streets."
At least 20 people killed were killed across the country Wednesday, including a child and a defected soldier, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. The deaths occurred in Homs, Idlib, Daraa, Aleppo, and the Damascus suburbs.
Artillery fire and automatic machine gunfire echoed through Homs Wednesday, a city of 1 million people, CNN's Arwa Damon reported from inside the city. Opposition activists say government forces are set on flattening every neighborhood that might hold dissidents calling for the ouster of al-Assad.
The Syrian regime said an "armed terrorist group" sabotaged a diesel pipeline passing near the Homs neighborhoods of Baba Amr and Sultanieh, state-run media said.
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But the LCC told CNN that government warplanes flying over Baba Amr blew up an oil pipeline. Amateur video showed columns of smoke on the ground.
"Cases of suffocation in the neighborhood of Baba Amr from the smoke that is developing after the explosions that hit the oil pipelines while the neighborhood is still being shelled," the LCC said.
Also, the LCC said government forces are firing mortars at the Khaldiya neighborhood in Homs and many people have been injured.
The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said military forces stormed the city of Hama, where explosions rattled two neighborhoods. The Observatory said landlines, cell phone communication and Internet access in Hama were cut off.
CNN cannot independently confirm details of events across Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.
But the vast majority of accounts from within the country indicate al-Assad's forces are slaughtering civilians en masse, part of a brutal crackdown on protesters calling for democratic reforms.
Meanwhile, after repeated U.N. failures to formally denounce the Syrian government, the latest U.N. draft resolution condemning Syria could go for a vote in the General Assembly Thursday.
Though a General Assembly vote would not be binding, it would mark the strongest U.N. statement yet on the violence. Russia and China have vetoed attempts to condemn Syria for the crackdown by the U.N. Security Council, whose resolutions are binding.
The draft resolution calls on Syria to end human rights violations and attacks against civilians immediately, and condemns "all violence, irrespective of where it comes from."
The United Nations has said since December that well over 5,000 people have been killed, but haven't been able to update the number due to the turmoil on the ground. The LCC has said well over 7,000 people have been killed.
European Union diplomats said they expect new EU sanctions on Syria by February 27, targeting the Syrian Central Bank and imposing a ban on exports of precious metals and phosphates.
Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said Tuesday that increasing pressure and sanctions on al-Assad's government was crucial.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe announced a national decision to establish an emergency relief fund for Syria, according to the website of the permanent mission of France to the United Nations. The fund, with an initial sum of €1 million ($1.3 million), will "fund the actions of all organizations and associations wishing to help the Syrian people."
France will propose the creation of a similar fund at the international level at the first "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunis, Tunisia, February 24, the statement said.
Juppe said on French radio Wednesday morning that diplomats have not given up on Russia in the Syria talks.
"We are currently renegotiating a resolution at the U.N. Security Council to see if we can persuade the Russians," Juppe told France Info.
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