Syria's Assad wins fourth term in election US calls fraudulent
By the regime's count, President Bashar al-Assad won 95.1% of the vote, handing him another seven-year term.
As widely expected, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been reelected for a fourth term after officials say he captured 95.1% of the vote in an election that the opposition and Western governments labeled a sham.
During a news conference late Thursday, parliament speaker Hammouda Sabbagh said more than 14 million Syrians participated in the election, making voter turnout about 78%. The results give 55-year-old Assad, who came to power in 2000 following the death of his father, the mandate to rule Syria until 2028.
Assad’s two challengers, Mahmud Ahmad Marei, who runs a government-approved opposition bloc, and former deputy minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah, never stood a chance. Both relative unknowns, they received 3.3% and 1.5%, respectively.
The presidential race took place in the midst of a decade-long conflict sparked by a popular rebellion against the ruling Assad family. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the war, which has displaced more than half of Syria’s pre-war population. More than 6.6 million Syrian refugees have fled the country, the United Nations says.
