HOMS, Syria — The center of this city is a blockaded, insurgent-held war zone, its skyline jagged with broken concrete. Ringing it is a patchwork of scarred neighborhoods, some functioning but fearful, some crammed with the displaced, others reduced to bombed-out shells where only soldiers move. Much of Homs is scarcely fit for human habitation, never mind a safe and peaceful exercise in democracy.

That did not stop the local governor, Talal al-Barazi, from declaring this broken city ripe for “relatively good elections.” His optimism is shared at the highest levels in Damascus, where officials have declared that a presidential vote will be held within three months, despite the raging war that has driven nine million Syrians from their homes. They expect President Bashar al-Assad to win — even though, for the first time in decades, there will in theory be an opponent on the ballot.

Claiming another seven-year term amid a three-year revolt against his rule would be a remarkable feat of survival for Mr. Assad, embarrassing for his international foes and demoralizing for Syrian opponents who staked their lives, families and towns on his ouster.

Mr. Assad and his allies have declared with new assurance that insurgents no longer pose a credible threat to overthrow him, a view that many Western diplomats in the region, though they believe the conflict will drag on, have quietly come to share. Even a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of France, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest opponents, suggested as much last week, saying, “Maybe he will be the sole survivor of this policy of mass crimes.”