Damascus, July 16 (IANS): Bashar al-Assad was Wednesday sworn-in the president of Syria for a new seven-year term before the members of the People’s Assembly.
President Assad was re-elected for a third seven-year term after winning a landslide victory in Syria’s first multi-candidate election June 3, Xinhua reported.
He won against Hassan al-Nouri and Maher Hajjar by a massive margin, securing 88.7 percent of the valid ballots.
The Syrian opposition and Western powers have dismissed the presidential poll as a "farce" as the polling was held in government-held territories.
The Syrian administration has been buoyed by the victories of the Syrian army and their main ally, the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, whose fighters are battling alongside the regime forces against the jihadi rebels.