In a country that for over three years has been immersed in a civil war at the regional level, no one doubts that the winner of the Syrian election will be Bashar al-Assad, who after 14 years in power is only now facing his first actual contest. In the past he was chosen and confirmed by a referendum; this time, breaking a 40-year-old ‘precedent,’ there was more than one name on the ballot. Bashar faced challengers Hassan al-Nouri, a Sunni Muslim businessman, and Maher al-Hajjar, a Sunni lawyer. Certainly, the campaign was disproportionately slanted in favor of al-Assad: posters of the incumbent president were pasted everywhere while it was very difficult to find any pictures of the other two candidates.