Syria’s Assad Wins 4th Term With 95 Percent of Vote in Election Critics Calls Fraudulent

A Syrian votes for President Bashar al-Assad by marking the ballot with blood at a polling station in Damascus on May 26, 2021, as voting for Syria's presidential election started in government-held areas despite accusations it was neither "free nor fair". The controversial vote is the second election since the start of a decade-long civil war that has killed more than 388,000 people and displaced half the pre-war population. LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images

BEIRUT—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad won a fourth term in office with 95.1 percent of the votes in an election that will extend his rule over a country ruined by war but which opponents and the West say was marked by fraud.

Assad’s regime, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, says the election on Wednesday shows Syria is functioning normally despite the decade-old conflict, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million people—about half the population—from their homes.