Damascus
Running unopposed, Syrian President Bashar Assad won a second seven–year term this week in a referendum vote. A British–educated ophthalmologist, Assad, 42, became president shortly after the death of his father, President Hafez Assad, in 2000. He used his first term to crack down on the country’s tiny pro–democracy movement and squelch Sunni extremist groups. Most of Syria is Sunni, but the Assad family and the governing elite are Alawites, a Shiite minority sect. The Interior Ministry said 11 million of Syria’s 12 million voters showed up at the polls this week, and that more than 97 percent of them voted to give Assad another term. Those figures could not be independently confirmed.
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