Presidential elections were held in Syria on 26 May 2021, with expatriates able to vote in some embassies abroad on 20 May. This was the last presidential election to be held in Ba'athist Syria, prior to its overthrow following the 2024 Syrian opposition offensive.
The three candidates were incumbent president Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmad Marei and Abdullah Sallum Abdullah. The elections were considered not to be free and fair. The United Nations condemned the elections as an illegitimate process with "no mandate"; accusing the Ba'athist regime of undermining UN Resolution 2254 and for obstructing the UN-backed political solution that calls for a "free and fair elections" under international monitoring.
Prior to the elections, several countries and intergovernmental organisations expressed concerns about the fairness and legitimacy of the election, and stated they would not recognize the results. In what was considered by some international observers to be a foregone conclusion and by many as an "empty election" marked by fraud, the result was a landslide victory for Assad, who won over 95% of the vote.
Officials said 79% of voters took part, but in the context of the ongoing civil war and subsequent population displacement, this figure has been questioned. The government claimed over 18,000,000 "eligible" voters, but because ballots were only offered in areas under government control, only just over 10,000,000 were actually able to vote, while, according to the official results, Assad won over 13,000,000 votes, technically meaning a voter turnout of 130%. Many observers and analysts noted that these numbers exceeded the possible number of adult voters in government-held areas of the country. President al-Assad was sworn in for his fourth term (2021–2028) on 17 July 2021 at the Presidential Palace. 
Assad ultimately did not complete his term, after his government collapsed on 8 December 2024.
Background.
Bashar al-Assad, the 19th President of Syria, took power in a referendum in 2000 following the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria for 30 years. Assad also inherited the role of leader of the ruling party: the Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He received 97.29% and 97.6% support, respectively, in the uncontested and undemocratic 2000 and 2007 elections. On 16 July 2014, Assad was sworn in for another seven-year term after another non-democratic, but this time multi-candidate, election where he received 88.7% of the vote. The election was held only in areas controlled by the Syrian government during the country's ongoing civil war and was criticised by the UN.
The 2021 election took place as the Syrian civil war enters the eleventh year of conflict and as a result the country still remains divided among various factions. The pre-war citizen population was over 21 million. As of 2020, Syria remained the largest source country of refugees with 6.6 million refugees having fled the nation since the start of the conflict. Additionally, seven million Syrians are internally displaced, including 4.4 million in rebel-held territory, and two to four million live in the Kurdish-ruled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria - see Demographics of Syria - while over 100,000 citizens are detained as political prisoners. The election was held only in government-held territory. According to TRT World, 5-6 million adults live in areas under government control, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimates 10.9 million adults and children. According to SOHR, only five million people participated in the election, and some were coerced into doing so. Interior minister Mohammad Khaled al-Rahmoun said that 18 million Syrians are eligible to vote.
The vote took place despite a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a new constitution ahead of elections.
Analysts said the elections were held so that the government and its backer Russia could claim victory in the war, to rehabilitate the country's reputation with the Arab League, and to demonstrate that Syria is a safe country for refugees to return to.
Four hundred civil servants, judges, lawyers and journalists detained in a crackdown early in the year on social media dissent under cybercrime laws were granted an amnesty on May in advance of the election, along with thousands freed under a general amnesty for currency speculators, drug dealers, smugglers and kidnappers. Most of the freed critics were on the government side in the Civil War, and the amnesty excluded tens of thousands of Assad political detainees.
The election was also held in the context of a severe economic crisis. The government took a series of steps in the weeks before the vote to influence public opinion, including attempts to reduce inflation and to extend government grants to state employees in areas experiencing economic hardship.
Electoral system.
The Constitution of Syria approved in 2012 states that:
"Voters shall be the citizens who have completed eighteen years of age and met the conditions stipulated in the Election Law." (Article 59)
The Election Law shall include the provisions that ensure: (Article 61)
Selection of candidates.
The Speaker of the People's Assembly of Syria, Hammouda Sabbagh (Ba'ath Party), announced the commencement of candidacy for presidential elections, starting from Monday 19 April. In his speech at the first session of the second extraordinary round of the People's Assembly, Sabbagh called on those who wish to run to submit their candidacy applications to the Supreme Constitutional Court within a period of 10 days until Wednesday 28 April.
Requirements for a presidential candidate.
According to Law No. 5 of the year 2014 of the general elections code, The 5th chapter - article No. 30, the candidate for the post of President of the Syrian Arab Republic must:
Further eligibility requirements in the Constitution include: 
The requirement for candidates to be backed by 35 members of parliament gives power to the ruling National Progressive Front, which dominates the assembly, and the requirement to have lived continuously in Syria for the past 10 years excludes opposition figures in exile.
Candidates.
On 3 May, the Syrian Supreme Constitutional Court announced that three candidates had been accepted, with the others rejected for not meeting the constitutional and legal conditions:
According to the "Daily Telegraph", "Few consider former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Merhi, a member of the so-called 'tolerated opposition', serious contenders."
Unsuccessful candidates.
Candidates reported to have put themselves forward included:
Campaign.
In Druze-majority Sweida in south-west Syria, election billboards were torn and splashed with red paint within hours.
Elections.
Prior to the elections, a Supreme Electoral Committee was formed.
Expatriates.
Expatriate voting occurred on 20 May in countries where it was allowed. One requirement for voting is a valid Syrian passport with an exit stamp issued by an official border crossing, which excludes many who fled the war. The Embassy of Syria in Kuala Lumpur was the first embassy that started the election process.
The following countries have allowed Syrian citizens to vote:
The following eight countries did not allow expatriate voting to be held in the Syrian diplomatic missions:
In Lebanon, thousands were bussed to the embassy outside Beirut to vote. Lebanese security forces struggled to control the crowd. Many voters carried portraits of Assad and chanted pro-Assad slogans, and the embassy played pro-Assad music. There were violent attacks on Syrian voters by Lebanese people. It was estimated that 50,000 of the 1.2 million Syrians in Lebanon voted.
Only a few hundred out of the 1.3 million Syrians in Jordan voted in the presidential election.
According to the state news agency, on 23 May, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Faisal Mekdad, handed over the results of counting the votes of the Syrian voters residing abroad to the Minister of Justice, Ahmed Al-Sayed, and to the Supreme Judicial Committee for Elections. He described the vote as peaceful and democratic, with the exception of Lebanon, and some Western states, where some voters were prevented from participating, and stated that these results would be included in the total and published together with them.
In Syria.
The elections were held in the country on 26 May, from 7 am to 7 pm, later extended until 12 am. Banners of the incumbent president were hung on the 12,000 polling stations across the country.
Although the government reported that 14 million citizens voted, SOHR estimated the real number was closer to five million.
President Assad publicly cast his ballot in the former rebel stronghold of Douma, site of a suspected chemical weapons attack by his forces in 2018.
The elections were not held in the predominantly Kurdish Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, apart from ballot boxes in military zones controlled by the government in Hasakah and Qamishli, or in the opposition-held Northwest, which together make up a third of the country. Authorities in the Autonomous Administration closed the border to all vehicles except ambulances to prevent residents from travelling to government areas to vote. According to the "Daily Sabah", tribes in Daraa, in Syria's south, also declared the election illegitimate, and hundreds of people there protested against the vote.
Video footage showed polling officials casting votes on citizens' behalf before handing back ID cards. A student in Damascus told Al-Jazeera that "Some universities will fail or even expel you if you don't vote" and state employees were instructed to vote by the security apparatus. Many voters pricked their fingers to sign their support for Assad in blood. Pro-government shabiha militias controlled the process in voting centers. Ibrahim al Jibawi, opposition representative in the Constitutional Committee in Geneva, declared that there were militia members that voted more than once.
Protests were held against the elections in Daraa, where in response polling stations were reportedly shut down, and Suweida.
International observers.
According to the state news agency, the People's Assembly voted to invite representatives of the parliaments of the following countries to monitor and supervise the electoral process: Algeria, Oman, Mauritania, Russia, Iran, Armenia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Belarus, South Africa, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Observers from Belarus arrived on 23 May.
Russian observers were shown on Syrian state TV station SANA, watching voters casting ballots without any privacy.
References.
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