Four new candidates register for Syria’s presidential elections

World News
27-04-2014 | 08:40
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Four new candidates register for Syria’s presidential elections
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2min
Four new candidates register for Syria’s presidential elections

Four more candidates announced their candidacy for Syria's upcoming June presidential election, state television announced, a poll Assad is expected to win.

Sawsan Omar Haddad, a 51-year-old engineer from the coastal province of Latakia, became the first woman to register as a candidate in Syria's upcoming June 3 presidential election. In a live broadcast from the parliament Sunday, speaker Jihad Laham said Haddad registered her candidacy a day earlier.


Along with Haddad, three more candidates registered, the speaker said, bringing the total number of presidential hopefuls so far to six.

Assad has suggested he would seek a third, seven-year term, though he has not announced his candidacy yet.

The three other candidates are: Samir Ahmed Moalla, a 43-year professor of international law from the southern province of Quinetra; Mohammad Firas Rajjouh, 48, from Damascus; and Abdul-Salam Salameh, 43, from the central province of Homs.

According to a new election law, the balloting must be contested by more than one candidate. Analysts said they expected at least one candidate to run against Assad to give the election a veneer of legitimacy.

Syrian opposition figures and Western leaders have blasted the decision to hold presidential elections amid the country's 3-year-old conflict, which activists say has killed more than 150,000 people and driven a third of the country's population from their homes.    

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has rejected the criticism, saying the decision to hold presidential elections was a "sovereign one." It warned that "no foreign power will be allowed to intervene" in the process.


AP
 

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