Assad wins presidential election with 88.7% of the vote

Jun 4, 2014, al Akhbar

Bashar al-Assad won 88.7 percent of the vote in Syria’s presidential election, parliament speaker Mohammed al-Laham said on Wednesday.

“I declare the victory of Dr. Bashar Hafez al-Assad as president of the Syrian Arab Republic with an absolute majority of the votes cast in the election,” Laham said in a televised address from his office in the Syrian parliament.

Syria’s constitutional court earlier said that turnout in Tuesday’s election and an earlier round of voting for Syrian expatriates stood at 73.4 percent.

A spokesman for the court had said 11.63 million Syrians voted in Tuesday’s election inside the country and in an earlier round of voting outside Syria for refugees and expatriates. There were 15.85 million eligible voters in total, he said.

Syrian officials had described the predicted victory as vindication of Assad’s three-year campaign against those fighting to oust him.

Voting took place in government-controlled areas of Syria, but not in large parts of northern and eastern Syria held by rebels.

Fireworks and celebratory gunfire could be heard across parts of Beirut and Lebanon’s Eastern Bekaa Valley with the announcement of Assad’s victory.