Syria's ruling party wins parliamentary election

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma cast their vote inside a polling station during the parliamentary elections in Damascus, Syria, in this handout released by SANA on July 19, 2020. )
Official results from Syria’s parliamentary election show that the country’s ruling party and its allies have managed to secure a majority in the legislature.

The electoral commission in Syria announced on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad’s Baath party and its allies won the general election and took 177 seats out of 250 in the parliament.

Syrians cast their ballots in over 7,000 polling stations in government-held areas on Sunday, the third such elections since foreign-backed militants pushed Syria into chaos in 2011.

Ballot boxes were also available in recently-liberated militant strongholds, including eastern Ghouta and southern Idlib.

The Syrian government has been able to liberate most of the territory occupied by terrorists over the past years.

The elections, twice postponed from April due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, came weeks after the United States imposed new economic sanctions on Syria under the so-called Caesar Act.

In the last legislative vote in 2016, the Baath party and its allies took 200 of seats in parliament.