Syria will hold a presidential election on May 26, the parliament speaker Hamouda Sabbagh announced on Sunday.
Mr. Sabbagh said in a statement that Syrians abroad will be “able to vote at embassies” on May 20, adding that prospective candidates could hand in their applications from Monday.
The poll comes amid a crushing economic crisis and the continued effects of a war that has killed at least 388,000 people.
President Bashar al-Assad, who took power following the death of his father Hafez in 2000, has not yet officially announced that he will stand for re-election.
Although, he won a previous election three years into Syria’s devastating civil war in 2014, with 88 percent of the vote.
Under Syria’s 2012 constitution, a president may only serve two seven-year terms – with the exception of the president elected in the 2014 poll.
