Bashar al-Assad is beginning his fourth seven-year term as President of Syria after winning the election which took place on Wednesday 26th May.

Declaring the results of the election, the head of Syria’s Parliament aannounced on 27 May that President  Assad had won 95.1% of the vote. However, the international community has condemned the election as neither free, nor fair.

Syria has been embroiled in a ten-year conflict sparked by the Assad regime’s ruthless response to civil protests in Aleppo, in March 2011, with people claiming rights and freedoms that were being similarly claimed across the Arab world at that time. The resulting chaos developed into outright civil war when outside forces, including Islamist insurgents and foreign governments, intervened in support of the opposition, or government forces.

The war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths; roughly half the population has been forced to flee their homes and there are an estimated six million Syrian refugees currently living abroad.

Assad has been president of Syria since 2000 after succeeding his late father, Hafez, who had ruled Syria from 1971.

Syria's last election was held in 2014.

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