Syria’s Bashar al-Assad will serve a fourth term in office after winning country’s presidential election.
- According to Parliamentary speaker Hammouda Sabbagh, Mr Assad had won 95.1 per cent of the vote, and that turnout was 78.6 per cent.
- Foreign ministers from France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US released a joint statement before the vote, calling it “illegitimate” and saying it would be “neither free nor fair” without the supervision of the United Nations.
- With his campaign slogan, “Hope through work”, Mr. Assad cast himself as the sole architect of a reconstruction phase for the war-ravaged country.
- He first became president by referendum, running unopposed after his father’s death in 2000,
- Syria has been devastated by a decade-long conflict that erupted after Mr Assad’s government responded with deadly force to peaceful pro-democracy protests in March 2011.
