• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad won a fourth term in office with 95.1 per cent of the votes. 

• The election was described as illegitimate and a sham by the West and his opposition. 

• Officials said 18 million were eligible to vote in the election held on May 26. But in the country ravaged by the 10-year-old conflict, areas controlled by rebels or Kurdish-led troops did not hold the vote. 

• At least 8 million, mostly displaced, live in those areas in northwest and northeast Syria. According to reports, over 5 million refugees mostly living in neighbouring countries have largely refrained from casting their ballots. 

• However, the head of parliament Hammouda Sabbagh announced the results saying voter turnout was around 78 per cent, with more than 14 million Syrians taking part.

• US and European officials have questioned the legitimacy of the election, saying it violates UN resolutions in place to resolve the conflict, lacks any international monitoring, and is unrepresentative of all Syrians. 

Fourth term for al-Assad

• The win delivers al-Assad, 55, seven more years in power and lengthens his family’s rule to nearly six decades. His father, Hafez al-Assad, led Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000.

• Bashar al-Assad’s years as president have been defined by the conflict that began in 2011 with peaceful protests before spiralling into a multi-sided conflict that has fractured the Middle Eastern country and drawn in foreign friends and enemies.

• Bashar al-Assad’s victory comes as the country is still devastated by the conflict. Fighting has subsided but the war is not over. An economic crisis is getting worse in a country where over 80 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and the local currency is in a free fall. 

Bashar al-Assad’s, his close associates and government officials are facing widening Western sanctions, added to already existing ones that have escalated as the war unfolded. European and US governments blame Assad and his aides for most of the war’s atrocities. 

The election is likely to offer little change to conditions in Syria. While Bashar al-Assad’s and his allies, Russia and Iran, may be seeking a new seal of legitimacy for the president in office since 2000, his re-election is likely to deepen the rift with the West, driving him closer to Russian and Iranian backers as well as China.

India-Syria relations

• India and Syria enjoy friendly political relations based on historic and civilisational links. There have been regular bilateral exchanges at the highest levels since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

• Since the conflict erupted in March 2011, Syria has witnessed unprecedented devastation and displacement. More than five million Syrians have fled the country and six million are internally displaced. The Indian government has provided $12 million in humanitarian assistance to Syria since the conflict broke out in 2011. 

• India took its principled stand in resolving the conflict in a non-military and through an inclusive Syrian-led political process. India continued to maintain its embassy even during the peak of the crisis.

• The size of the Indian community in Syria has shrunk significantly due to the crisis. At present, the number of Indians in Syria is less than 150, most being skilled workers. 

• As many as 483 Syrians had benefited from an artificial limb fitment camp organised by the ministry of external affairs in Damascus in January 2020 in partnership with the Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BVMSS), Jaipur.

• India-Syria Centre for Excellence in IT, which was set up at Damascus in December 2010 but could not be operationalised due to security concerns, has now been upgraded to a NextGen Center for Excellence in IT by concluding an MoU between the two countries on October 1, 2019. 

• The 2x200 MW Tishreen Thermal Power Plant Extension project, for which a line of credit of $240 million was extended to Syria in 2010 for part-financing (52 per cent), was halted by the BHEL due to the crisis in Syria. With improvement in the security situation, the work on the project has resumed since October 2019. 

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