Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wins fourth term in office

As expected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a fourth term in office with 95.1% of the votes.

Head of parliament Hammouda Sabbagh announced the results at a news conference on Thursday, saying voter turnout was around 78%, with more than 14 million Syrians taking part.

Assad was running against two obscure candidates, former deputy Cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, head of a small, officially sanctioned opposition party.

Marei got 3.3% of the vote, while Saloum received 1.5%, Sabbagh said.

The Foreign Ministers of the United States, Germany, Britain, France and Italy, urged the international community to reject the elections. The statement said: “We call on the international community to firmly reject the attempt to gain legitimacy by the Syrian president without stopping the gross human rights violations or participating in a meaningful way in the political process facilitated by the UN to end the conflict,” the statement said.

Western ministers noted that these elections were “neither free nor fair.”

The Syrian Democratic Council (MSD) said that they would not participate in the Syrian presidential elections scheduled to be held on 26 May.

The MSD said: “The Syrian Democratic Council has repeatedly announced that it is not concerned with any elections that do not achieve the goals of the Syrians in their lives, rights and political presence, and will not be a facilitator of any electoral procedure that violates the meaning of the UN Resolution 2254.”