In Syria, Assad wins fourth presidential term in elections dismissed by critics

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has won a fourth term in office with 95 percent of the vote in a ballot dismissed abroad as a “farce.” [...] Assad won by 95.1 percent in Wednesday’s presidential election, according to the vote official results. [...] With less than five percent of the vote left for his two hand-picked “rivals,” the election result Assad’s regime announced appears to shut down any suggestion he might have used the election as an opening for more inclusive politics. [...] The United Nations had pinned hopes on this election as a watershed in efforts to reform Syria but the much-awaited constitutional overhaul that was supposed to precede it never happened.
Read the full article here: The Arab Weekly