Bashar al-Assad was re-elected for a fourth term as president of war-torn Syria. The official results on Thursday showed that the polls were « neither free nor fair » despite Western allegations.
The controversial vote to extend Assad’s stranglehold to power was the second since the beginning of a decade of civil war in which more when 388,000 people were killed, millions displaced and the country’s infrastructure destroyed.
The parliamentary speaker announced on Thursday that Assad had received 95.1 percent of the votes cast, defeating two practically unknown challengers.
Against him stood the former Minister of State Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmud Merhi, a member of the so-called « tolerated opposition, » long dismissed by opposition leaders in exile as an extension of the regime.
On the eve of the elections, the United States said Great Britain , France, Germany and Italy said the poll was « neither free nor fair, » and Syria’s fragmented opposition on has called it a « farce ».
Huge election posters glorifying Assad had surfaced in two-thirds of the country under his control in the run-up to the election on Wednesday.
Before the election results were announced, people gathered On Thursday tens of thousands of Syrians in various cities to celebrate, wave Syrian flags and carry pictures of Assad, state media reported.
The festivities erupted after the election committee, quoted by local television, said « the process of voting was completed in most Syrian provinces « .
» Tens of thousands of people in Tartus Province gathered on the city’s coast to celebrate Assad’s expected victory, « according to the state-run SANA news agency.
Thousands of others Syrians gathered in the coastal city of Latakia and on Umayyad Square in the capital Damascus, which together with Tartus and Latakia are bastions of the regime.
Also in Aleppo un Celebrations were held in Sweida, in southern Syria, where a crowd gathered in front of City Hall, state media said.
The first is that of a leader who has won the war and will lead the reconstruction, he said , and « the second is to show foreigners who will lead the political talks on the ground after the fighting ends. »
The elections were held in government-held areas on Wednesday, and the state media showed long lines for the Polling stations that remained open five hours after the scheduled closing time.
The vote took place in the midst of the lowest violence since the outbreak of war in 2011 – but with the economy in free fall.
Over 80 percent of the population live in poverty and the Syrian pound has depreciated against the dollar, leading to skyrocketing inflation.
Assad’s campaign slogan « Hope through Work » was reminiscent of the col ossal reconstruction, which was necessary to rebuild the country and required billions of dollars in funding.
He was first elected by referendum in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, who served Syria for 30 years The Syrian envoy to the United Nations, Geir Pedersen, stated that the elections did not take place as part of the political transition called for in Security Council Resolution 2254, which provides for free and fair elections. </ "What is needed is a Syria-led and owned political solution, backed by the United Nations and backed by constructive international diplomacy," he said.
In rebel-held northwest Syria, in An AFP correspondent said hundreds of people took to the streets on Wednesday to protest.
(Except for the headline, this story was e not edited by NDTV staff and published from a syndicated feed.)
« );
render.focus ();
api = « https://gen.ndtv.com/screenshot/webscreenshot.aspx?apikey=3cb0166badabscreenshot7bfa6b56b4c82c40b620&siteid=7&width=600&height=600CSSE1 »
$ .ajax ({
Url: api,
Data type: « jsonp »,
jsonp: « callback »,
Timeout: 10,
asynchronous:! 1,
Success: function (s) {
var n = « »;
loc = window.location;
loc = loc.href;
loc = loc.replace (« # », « »);
snapid = e.snapchatid;
render.firebase.initializeApp ({projectId: « firestore-realtime-push »});
render.firebase.firestore (). collection (« snapchat.ndtv.com »). doc (snapid) .onSnapshot (
Function (s) {
var t = e.data ();
imgpath = t.imagepath;
if (imgpath! = ») {n = loc ‘? sticker = ‘t.imagepath; render.location.href = « https://www.snapchat.com/scan?attachmentUrl= » n;}
})
},
Error: function () {
render.location.href = « https://www.snapchat.com/scan?attachmentUrl= » n;
}}
})
}}
}}
Follow the latest news live on NDTV.com for news updates from India and around the world.
Keywords:
