So far, their declarations reflect a stated desire to involve all Syrians in the construction of the new State, whatever their ethnic, religious or confessional affiliation. At the same time, the fall of the Assad state favors an unprecedented liberation of public speech, freed from generalized surveillance and the repression of any dissident opinion which had maintained a climate of terror for more than fifty years. Reporters Without Borders has ranked Syria penultimate in its 2024 press freedom rankings.
“We are working to consolidate freedoms of press and expression which were severely restricted” in areas controlled by the former government, Transitional Government Information Minister Mohammed al Omar said on Wednesday. He thus indicated that he wanted to rebuild “a free, objective and professional media landscape”.
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Symbolic pledge for women
The country’s new de facto leader, Ahmad al Charaa, met on Tuesday with representatives of the country’s various Christian clergies, Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican. And to symbolically give guarantees of openness regarding women, the transitional government on Monday appointed Maysaa Sabrine as head of the Central Bank of Syria. Already vice-governor, she is the first woman to take the reins of the financial institution in more than seventy years of existence.
The de facto authorities also seem to want to dissolve everything – or almost everything – that concerns the old regime. They promised to organize a National Dialogue Conference, in which civil society will be able to participate in all its diversity, and where the dissolution of the current Constitution and Parliament will be recorded by vote. The head of the brand new General Intelligence Service, Anas Khattab, for his part announced that a new security structure for the country would be put in place as soon as the multiple branches of the previous services – of sinister memory – would be dissolved.
Abu Mohammed al Joulani, a former jihadist in search of political stature
“Rewrite the Constitution”
Ahmad al Charaa also outlined in broad terms the implementation of the future state project. It will therefore be necessary to “rewrite the Constitution”a task he rated at “two or three years” in a television interview given last weekend to Saudi media Al Arabiya. To initiate an electoral process, a period of “four years” could be necessary, to the extent that such a task first requires a population census. As well as effective control of the new authorities over the entire national territory, which is not the case as things currently stand.
The national army, which has collapsed in recent weeks in the face of the advance of insurgent troops, will not be dissolved but thoroughly restructured. All armed groups that participated in the overthrow of the Assad regime will be integrated there after their dissolution, according to an agreement unveiled last week. Ahmad al Charaa (alias Abu Mohammed al Joulani, his nom de guerre) announced that the same would apply to his group, Hayat Tahrir al Cham (HTC). “A country cannot be run by the mentality of groups and militias.”declared the former Islamist leader, in the same interview.
Words which seem to confirm that these groups, having reached their end, will merge into the official army operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense. The general command thus announced its first promotions of officers “as part of the development and modernization of the army […]in order to guarantee the security and stability” of the country, according to a decree published last Sunday. These are two generals (including Mourhaf Abou Qasra, military leader of HTC, named Minister of Defense on Tuesday), five brigadier generals and around forty colonels. The majority of them are part of Ahmad al Charaa’s inner circle, according to the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (an NGO based in. London), Rami Abdel Rahmane.
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Scattered in nature
As for the Baath party, in power in Syria continuously since 1963, there are many calls for its dissolution. So far, the former single party (of nationalist and socialist leanings) has announced that it is freezing its activities. Some members of its leadership dispersed into the wilderness, others fled the country. In a symbolic gesture, Syria’s new leaders have transformed the party’s former headquarters in Damascus into a center where ex-members of the army and security forces line up to register their names and hand in their weapons. Many Syrians – including former party members – say his “rule” damaged relations with other Arab countries and contributed to the spread of corruption.
Many other challenges await the new authorities, including that of getting children back into school. Some 3.7 million Syrians, or more than half of school-age children, are out of school this year, warned the NGO Save the Children, which calls for “immediate action to reintegrate them” . Many schools have been destroyed or damaged and others are now being used as shelters due to the new wave of displaced people.
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