Syria; Transitioning to multi-party elections

After decades of Baath Party rule, Syrians hungry for choice in politics

Amidst the excruciating noise emanating from Syria and other uprising hotspots, it was refreshing to read this well-researched and wonderfully presented article about Syrians yearning for a chance at multi-party politics after decades under one-party rule.


Syrian authorities have promised a political party law

The following excerpt is from the GulfNews.com website:

Putting an end to one-party rule in Syria

Without modernisation, political groups of the past will find it difficult to cope with these times

By Sami Moubayed, Special to Gulf News

Syrian society has for 48 years been ruled by the Baath Party, preaching ‘unity, freedom and socialism'. The Baathists, however, who make up approximately 1.2 million, are a minority among Syria's 22 million people. For years, joining the party was a condition for any career mobility in government.

In addition to the presidency, the Baath controlled strategic posts like that of Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament, besides the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Interior and Information.

The Regional Command of the Baath Party is the highest political body in Syria, responsible for strategic decision-making when it comes to education, economy, religion and politics. For years, outspoken voices have been heard calling for political pluralism and doing away with one-party rule.

Lobby groups demanded that the National Progressive Front (NPF), a parliamentary coalition of socialist parties that is headed by the Baath, be either revamped or dissolved altogether. The NPF, created in the early 1970s, includes an assortment of Nasserist parties that have a very limited power base in Syria and yet get a certain quota of seats in Parliament and any Syrian cabinet. Its leaders are old and ailing — and so are their ideologies, certainly unfit for a rising generation of Syrians with ambition. The only parties in the NPF that have any popularity are the Syrian Communist Party (SCP) and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), both of which, along with the Baath, date back to the 1930s and 1940s.

Recent events in Syria have created a new mood, where authorities have promised that a political party law will go into effect. After a meeting with President Bashar Al Assad, Syria's top cleric Mohammad Saeed Ramadan Al Butti said that the era of one-party rule will come to an end once the new law comes into effect.

Once it does, the pre-set quota of the Baath in both government and parliament will automatically come to an end. And so will Article 8 of the Constitution, which designates the Baath as the "ruling party of state and society".

The idea, of course, is not new, having surfaced at different junctures over the past four decades, most recently in the summer of 2005 when the Baath Party promised to pass a law allowing for political pluralism.

Although a draft was indeed prepared, that law never saw the light of day because of the many challenges Syria faced as a result of a stand-off with the Bush administration, which forced Damascus to put political reforms on the backburner.

According to the draft law, which is being re-visited today, a party founder needs to be a Syrian citizen aged 35 and above, who has no criminal record. It doesn't specify a certain level of education that he/she should have in order to establish a political party.


Gulf News article on Syria's multi-party democracy law