Assad re-elected Syrian President with '95% of votes'

Source: 
RTE.ie
Publication date: 
May 28 2021

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has been re-elected with 95.1% of the votes cast, the parliamentary speaker has announced, following an election criticised by the opposition and Western nations.

The two other presidential candidates, former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmud Merhi, a member of the so-called "tolerated opposition", received 1.5% and 3.3% of the vote respectively, according to the official results of yesterday's election.

In a country ravaged by war since 2011, 14.2 million people went to the polls, a turnout rate of 76.64%, according to the parliamentary speaker.

The election went ahead in the two-thirds of the country controlled by the government, and in some Syrian embassy overseas.

It was the second presidential election in the country since the start of the war which has cost over 388,000 lives.

In 2014, President Assad obtained 88% of the vote, according to the official results.

Mr Assad has dismissed Western accusations that the vote was neither "free nor fair".

The United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy have condemned the electoral process as "illegitimate".

Source: Assad re-elected Syrian President with '95% of votes' (rte.ie)