Syrians vote in election set to extend al-Assad’s grip on power

President expected to win fourth term against two rivals in a vote decried by the opposition, Western nations as a sham.

Voters in government-held parts of Syria are heading to the polls to cast ballots in an election that is set to cement a fourth term for Bashar al-Assad – but is dismissed by the opposition and Western powers as a farce. Wednesday’s presidential vote is the second since the beginning of Syria’s uprising-turned-war a decade ago, a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to leave the country. In 2014, al-Assad won nearly 89 percent of the vote. Al-Assad is seeking a fourth seven-year term against two government-approved opposition candidates: Abdullah Salloum Abdullah, former state minister of parliamentary affairs; and Mahmoud Ahmad Marei, head of the National Democratic Front, a small, state-endorsed opposition party. Forty-eight other presidential aspirants had submitted requests for candidacy, but their applications were rejected.