2021 Syrian presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Syria on 26 May 2021, with expatriates able to vote in some embassies abroad on 20 May. The three candidates were incumbent president Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmad Marei and Abdullah Sallum Abdullah. The elections were considered not to be free and fair. The United Nations condemned the elections as an illegitimate process with "no mandate"; accusing the Ba'athist regime of undermining UN Resolution 2254 and for obstructing the UN-backed political solution that calls for a "free and fair elections" under international monitoring. Prior to the elections, several countries and intergovernmental organisations expressed concerns about the fairness and legitimacy of the election, and stated they would not recognize the results. In what was considered by some international observers to be a foregone conclusion and by many as an "empty election" marked by fraud, the result was a landslide victory for Assad, who won over 95% of the vote. Officials said 78.6% of voters took part, but in the context of the ongoing civil war and subsequent population displacement, this figure has been questioned. The government claimed over 18,000,000 "eligible" voters, but because ballots were only offered in areas under government control, only just over 10,000,000 were actually able to vote, while, according to the official results, Assad won over 13,000,000 votes, technically meaning a voter turnout of 130%. Many observers and analysts noted that these numbers exceeded the possible number of adult voters in government-held areas of the country. President al-Assad was sworn-in for his fourth term (2021–2028) on 17 July 2021 at the Presidential Palace. Per Chapter 3, Article 88 of the Syrian Constitution, which only allows for a maximum of one re-election, al-Assad will be ineligible to run for another term in 2028. Background Bashar al-Assad, the 19th President of Syria, took power in a referendum in 2000 following the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria for 30 years. Assad also inherited the role of leader of the ruling party: the Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He received 97.29% and 97.6% support, respectively, in the uncontested and undemocratic 2000 and 2007 elections. On 16 July 2014, Assad was sworn in for another seven-year term after another non-democratic, but this time multi-candidate, election where he received 88.7% of the vote. The election was held only in areas controlled by the Syrian government during the country's ongoing civil war and was criticised by the UN. The 2021 election took place as the Syrian civil war enters the eleventh year of conflict and as a result the country still remains divided among various factions. The pre-war citizen population was over 21 million. As of 2020, Syria remained the largest source country of refugees with 6.6 million refugees having fled the nation since the start of the conflict. Additionally, seven million Syrians are internally displaced, including 4.4 million in rebel-held territory, and two to four million live in the Kurdish-ruled Autonomous Administration of North and East