DAMASCUS: Voting began across government-controlled parts of Syria on Sunday for the war-ravaged country’s first local elections since 2011, state news agency SANA said. Syrian state television broadcast footage of voters around Damascus and in the coastal government bastions of Tartus and Latakia dropping their ballots into plastic boxes as election officials looked on. Syrian troops now control around two-thirds of the country after scoring a series of military victories in recent months. Syria last held local elections in December 2011, just nine months into the conflict. It held parliamentary elections in 2016 and a presidential vote in 2014 that renewed President Bashar al-Assad’s rule for another seven years.

Source: Manila Times September 16, 2018 16:07 UTC