Nearly two months after the ouster of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, former opposition commander and Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has been named president for a transitional period, Syrian state media reported.
“It’s a monumental day,” said Al Jazeera’s correspondent Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Damascus. “It gives more clarity for the way forward for this country because there was ambiguity on what this new administration was going to look like.”
What was announced today?
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday, citing commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, that al-Sharaa has been named president until elections are held.
Al-Sharaa was also authorised to form a temporary legislative council for the transitional phase, which will carry out its task until a new constitution is adopted.
All military factions in Syria, including Syria’s army and security forces, as well as al-Sharaa’s own Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), were dissolved, as was the country’s constitution, and al-Assad’s Baath party – which had ruled the country for more than 60 years prior to al-Assad’s overthrow.
The announcements emerged during a meeting in Damascus attended by commanders of armed groups that fought alongside al-Sharaa’s HTS to oust al-Assad from power on December 8.
“[Al-Sharaa] is trying to reassure them that they are going to be not just represented but also will be part of a new Syria,” Bin Javaid said.
When will Syria hold elections?
We don’t know how long the transitional period will be, as there is currently no timetable for Syria to hold elections.
Al-Sharaa has previously said that organising an election in the war-ravaged country could take as long as four years.
Speaking with Saudi Arabian broadcaster Al Arabiya in December, al-Sharaa said that drafting a new constitution could take up to three years.
He said elections would likely be held after four years because a new census needs to be conducted to specify the number of eligible voters in the country.
“Any meaningful elections will require conducting a comprehensive population census,” he said.
Who is Ahmed al-Sharaa?
Al-Sharaa, who was previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, was the leader of HTS, a group that became the most powerful armed opposition force in Syria and led the offensive culminating in the ouster of al-Assad last December.
HTS was formerly an affiliate of al-Qaeda but has sought to moderate itself in recent years. Instead, al-Sharaa has positioned himself and his group as credible caretakers of a Syria liberated from al-Assad, who brutally repressed a popular uprising during the Arab Spring in 2011.
Since al-Assad’s removal, HTS has become the de facto ruling party and has set up an interim government largely composed of officials from the local government it previously ran in rebel-held Idlib province.
In recent weeks, al-Sharaa has met with foreign leaders and diplomats, United Nations officials and International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan.
Is Syria still under foreign sanctions?
This week, European Union foreign ministers discussed the matter at a meeting in Brussels.
Some EU sanctions on Syria will be lifted as part of a broader EU move to help stabilise Damascus, France’s foreign minister said.
The United States and the EU introduced a series of crippling sanctions on Syria in 2011, denying Damascus access to capital markets and trade revenues. Western restrictions in effect cut off Syria’s formal economy from the rest of the world.
Al-Sharaa and his government have made it clear to foreign leaders that the lifting of sanctions is crucial to Syria’s future.
“These sanctions are having an impact on everyone inside Syria, on all aspects of Syrian society,” Bin Javaid said. “That will make or break how the economy functions, how Syria is going to be able to move forward.”
What was the Arab Socialist Baath Party?
All remnants of the al-Assad regime will be dissolved, including parliament, Syria’s old constitution, and al-Assad’s Arab Socialist Baath Party.
The Baath party, whose stated aim was to unify Arab states in one nation, was founded by two Syrian Arab nationalists, Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and adopted its first constitution in 1947. At one point the party ruled two Arab countries, Iraq and Syria.
In Syria, the Baath party became inextricably associated with the al-Assad family, which took power in 1970. For decades, the family used the party and its pan-Arab ideology to control the country. Many senior military jobs were held by members of the family’s minority Alawite sect, and party membership was used as a cover to give it a nationalist rather than a sectarian nature.
Following al-Assad’s ouster, many members of the party’s leadership went into hiding or fled the country. In a symbolic move, Syria’s new rulers have turned the former party headquarters in Damascus into a centre where former members of the army and security forces line up to register their names and hand over their weapons.