Syria’s parliament speaker announced on Sunday that presidential elections in the country will be held on May 26, The Associated Press reported.
Speaker Hammoud Sabbagh said the window for nominations will be open for 10 days starting Monday. Syrians abroad will vote May 20, he added.
The election is widely expected to give President Bashar Al-Assad a fourth seven-year term. It is unclear whether any candidates will run against him but any such runs would be symbolic.
Assad’s Baath party and its allies won a majority in parliamentary elections held across government-held areas of Syria in July, taking 177 seats out of 250.
Unsurprisingly, during the last polls in 2016, Assad’s ruling Baath party and its allies won a majority of the chamber's 250 seats.
The Baath party has governed Syria with an iron fist for the past half-century. In 2012, however, Damascus for the first time allowed candidates from outside the party to run in legislative elections.
A presidential election was held in 2014 and won by Assad, though there were two other candidates who ran against him.
The United States last month warned Assad that the Biden administration will not recognize the result of its presidential election unless the voting is free, fair, supervised by the United Nations and represents all of Syrian society, according to AP.