Bashar al-Assad said that Assad's victory [in the presidential elections] is an important step to "attain peace in Syria and a clear cut evidence that the Syrian people trust their president as a national leader and support his policies which aim at maintaining Syria's sovereignty and unity". The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine supports the Assad government. The leader of Fatah and President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, has said that electing President Assad means "preserving Syria's unity and sovereignty and that it will help end the crisis and confront terrorism, wishing prosperity and safety to Syria". President
Tarek Fatah from Mumbai to Karachi following the Partition of India in 1947. He was a leftist student leader in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Karachi, Fatah entered journalism as a reporter for the "Karachi Sun" in 1970, and was an investigative journalist for Pakistan Television. He was imprisoned twice by military regimes. In 1977, he was charged with sedition by the General Zia-ul Haq regime and barred from journalism in Pakistan. He left Pakistan and settled in Saudi Arabia, before emigrating to Canada in 1987. Of himself, Fatah asserts: On