Syria: Assad asks PM Arnous in presidential decree to form new cabinet
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has tasked Prime Minister Hussein Arnous with forming a new government, more than two months after a presidential election, which the 55-year-old leader won with 95.1% of the votes.
Assad asked former water resources minister in a presidential decree to move quickly and form a new government, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Sunday.
He named Arnous as prime minister in June last year to replace Imad Khamis. The president took the oath last month for a fourth term in office after last May’s election.
The Syrian parliament announced on May 27 that President Assad had won a fourth seven-year term in the presidential race.
Hamoudeh Sabbagh, the parliament speaker, said Assad won 95.1 percent of the vote as opposed to 88.7 percent in the 2014 election.
He said about 14 million of the estimated 18 million eligible voters inside and outside Syria had cast their ballots, with a turnout rate of 78.64 percent.
Assad's competitors, former deputy cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and head of a Syrian opposition party, Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, won 3.3 percent and 1.5 percent of the vote respectively.
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