By Xinhua
Damascus, Syrian Speaker of the People’s Assembly (parliament) Mahmoud al-Abrash has officially announced Bashar al-Assad as president of Syria for a new seven-year constitutional term following final results of a Sunday referendum in which Assad won 97.62 percent of votes.
“I proclaim Bashar al-Assad president of the Syrian Arab Republic for a mandate of seven years… beginning on July 17, 2007,” Abrash told a special session of parliament broadcast live on television Tuesday.
More than 11 million Syrians, out of the 12 million eligible voters, said “yes” in the referendum to approve Assad’s new mandate while the “no” voters numbered 19,653 and about 253,000 votes were void, said Interior Minister Bassam Abdel Majeed.
Such a consensus showed “the political maturity of Syria and the brilliance of our democracy and multiparty system,” he said.
Syria’s People’s Assembly (parliament) has unanimously approved the proposal to extend Assad’s tenure as a president for a second term earlier this month.
The 41-year-old president, a sole candidate in the referendum, succeeded his late father Hafez Assad in July 2000 who had died the previous month. Official figures then showed that Bashar received 97.29 percent of voter support.