Above: foreign delegations in Damascus to observe the Syrian presidential election
According to the BBC:
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has won a third term in office after securing 88.7% of votes in Tuesday's presidential election, the parliamentary speaker has announced.
Earlier, Syria's constitutional court put the vote turnout at 73.47%.
Voting took place in government-controlled areas, but not in parts of the north and east held by rebels.
[…]
Syria's constitutional court had earlier announced that some 11.63 million Syrians voted out of a total of 15.85 million eligible to cast a ballot.
The win is likely to boost Mr Assad's supporters. The government side has recently made significant military gains and rebel groups are fighting among themselves.
[…]
Also on Wednesday, a delegation of officials visiting Damascus from more than 30 countries, including Iran, Russia, [Brazil] and Venezuela, issued a statement in support of the "transparent and free" elections, the Associated Press reports.By many accounts, the Syrian presidential election appears to have been conducted with less disruption and better turnout than previously anticipated by most Western observers. The result serves the Syrian government with another boost in a string of recent successes, as well as buoying Iranian directed war and peace efforts that include President Assad.
Time will tell if the government success at the Battle of Homs and the Syrian presidential election of 2014, will ultimately produce a somewhat similar rendering to that following the Battle of Atlanta and presidential election of 1964 during the American Civil War.
