Bashar al-Assad overwhelmingly wins Syria’s presidential election

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad wins the country’s presidential election by a landslide, securing 95.1 percent of the popular vote.

The senior parliamentarian said Assad had earned a total of 13,540,360 votes, extending his tenure for a fourth consecutive term.

The election turnout, Sabbagh noted, stood at 14,239,000.

Assad was contesting the polls alongside two other candidates, opposition figure Mahmoud Ahmad Marei and former MP and minister, Abdullah Sallum Abdullah.

Marei came second in the race by winning 3.3 percent or 470,276 of the ballots, while Abdullah secured 1.5 percent of the vote or 213,968 ballots.

Upon scoring a win, any given president is given a seven-year mandate in Syria.

Syrians head to polls to elect president as anti-terror fight nears end

Syrians vote in a presidential election as the counter-terrorism operation in the Arab country nears an end with government forces winning back control of almost all regions from foreign-backed militants.

Assad, whose father Hafez used to serve the Syrian people in the same position, first won incumbency in 2000 following his father’s demise and provisional presidency of Abdul Halim Khaddam.

Right in the middle of his second term, an avalanche of foreign-backed militancy and terrorism started to sweep through the country. 

The violence sought to sow chaos in the Arab country and depose Assad. In perspective, though, it also sought to damage the interests of Damascus’ allies in the Arab country, and have the chaos sweep through the region.

The crisis gave way to the presence of Takfiri terrorist outfits, such as Daesh, in 2014. Unsurprisingly, the United States and dozens of its allies used the situation as an excuse to invade the country. The US-led invasion and regular attacks by the Israeli regime on Syria’s defenses started to significantly interrupt Damascus’ efforts to restore the situation back to normal.

The violence turned the biggest part of Syria into scenes of bloodbath and havoc. 

Amid the direct and indirect war efforts, Syria enlisted the assistance of its allies Iran and Russia to reinforce its anti-terror struggle. Tehran has been providing Damascus with military advisory assistance, while Moscow has been lending air support to the Syrian army’s operations. The support has helped the country take great strides towards resolving the foreign-backed crisis.

The assistance began to help Syria reverse the militants and terrorists’ advances and eventually defeat Daesh in late 2017.

Now, the country has restored its sovereignty over almost its entire expanse, and held the presidential race to the consternation of the same foreign and regional states that have been supporting the violence. 

Criticism of Syria vote shows West detached from reality: FM Mekdad

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad says the Western states’ criticism about the presidential election in the Arab country shows they are detached from reality.

Prior to announcement of the results, Syrians took to the streets and voiced their satisfaction with the electoral process.

The elections, which had started at 07:00 a.m. local time (04:00 a.m. GMT), had been supposed to last for 12 hours. However, zealous popular reception of the event had the authorities keep the polling stations open for five more hours.

Announcement of the results were followed by scenes of jubilation throughout the country.

Fireworks were set off and people swarmed the capital’s Umayyad Square to celebrate Assad’s victory, 

SANA published images of the jubilant people chanting slogans and waving the national flag.

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