DHAKA: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has won a landslide victory in presidential poll securing 88.7 percent of the vote, parliament speaker Mohammad al-Laham has said.

The two other candidates, Hassan al-Nouri and Maher Hajjar, won 4.3 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.

The victory gives Assad a third seven-year term in office despite a raging civil war which grew out of protests against his rule.

The head of the Supreme Constitutional Court said on Wednesday that the turnout in the country's presidential election this week was 73.42 percent.

"I declare the victory of Dr Bashar Hafez al-Assad as president of the Syrian Arab Republic with an absolute majority of the votes cast in the election," Laham said in a televised address from his office in the Syrian parliament.

The opposition and its international backers have denounced the election as a farce, saying the two relatively unknown and state-approved challengers offered no real alternative to Assad.

Voting was held only in government-controlled areas, excluding vast chunks of northern and eastern Syria that are in rebel hands.

Source: Al-jazeera

BDST: 0840 HRS, JUN 05, 2014