Syria's Assad re-elected for 4th term

Supporters of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad celebrate the presidential election results in Damas

Bashar al-Assad has been re-elected for a fourth term as president of war-ravaged Syria, official results showed on Thursday, despite Western accusations the polls were ‘neither free nor fair’. The controversial vote extending Assad's stranglehold on power was the second since the start of a decade-long civil conflict that has killed more than 388,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure. The parliamentary speaker announced Thursday that Assad garnered 95.1 percent of the votes cast, trouncing two virtually unknown challengers. Standing against him were former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmud Merhi, a member of the so-called ‘tolerated opposition’, long dismissed by exiled opposition leaders as an extension of the regime.