DAMASCUS - Last week, stories surfaced in
the Lebanese and Arabic press, saying that Syria
was about to do away with Article 8 of the
constitution that designates the Ba'ath Party as
"leader of state and society".
With
President Bashar al-Assad expected to deliver a
speech this Monday, his third since the crisis
began in March, optimists are claiming that he
will go 10 steps further than everybody predicts -
going as far, perhaps - as canceling Article 8.
This reform has been a high priority for
the Syrian opposition for 40 years. For decades,
however, the Ba'athists refused to discuss Article
8, claiming that given the Ba'ath Party's secular
agenda, this article prevented radical Islamic
groups, like the Muslim
Brotherhood, from coming to
power in Syria.
The argument for canceling
it resurfaced forcefully in March when
demonstrations broke out in different Syrian
cities demanding political and economic change.
Human-rights groups now claim that the ensuing
crackdown has killed more than 1,300 civilians,
with Damascus blaming the protests on armed
extremist groups backed by a foreign conspiracy
that aims to replace the regime with an Islamic
emirate.
Depending on whom one talks to in
Syria, people are either 100% committed to ending
Ba'ath Party supremacy - being the majority - or
fully committed to maintaining the status quo,
without realizing how dangerous it is to refuse
admitting how much times have changed for Syria.
On Sunday, reports emerged that government
troops had swept through the north, where this
month an alleged 120 security agents were killed
and two mass graves discovered, in an attempt to
block refugees from leaving. Some 10,000 refugees
have fled to Turkey in the past 10 days.
On the same day, Syria's ambassador to
Washington told media that his government
differentiated between the legitimate demands of
protesters and those of armed gangs and said Assad
would deal with "all these issues in his speech".
Pragmatic officials within Ba'ath are also
pushing for cancelation of Article 8, claiming
that to survive the Ba'ath regime of Assad has to
reform from within. Otherwise, simply put; it will
collapse. The Syrian government cannot continue to
rule with the same methods, tools and figures who
have dominated public life since 1970.
Hardliners, however, are objecting to any
modification to the Ba'ath Party's standing,
claiming that any constitutional amendment needs
parliamentary approval, which is difficult at this
stage, since parliament is not in session. They
are frantic that if the Ba'ath Party falls, so
will their privileged status in Syrian society and
public life.
On May 30, the assistant
secretary general of the Ba'ath Party, Mohammad
Said Bkheitan, put it bluntly, defiantly saying,
"We have 2.8 million Ba'athists in Syria, while
those demonstrating are no more than 100,000." He
then added, "We tell the opposition, if you come
to power through elections, you can cancel Article
8 of the constitution!" Syria's population is 21
million.
The opposition immediately fired
back that they cannot come to power through
elections because based on Article 8, the Ba'ath
Party gets a pre-set majority in parliament, along
with all senior jobs in government, including the
presidency, the premiership, the speakership of
parliament.
For any real change to take
place, the pre-set quota of the Ba'ath Party has
to be canceled - and so does the standing of the
Regional Command of the Ba'ath Party, which
handles all strategy for Syria.
To
maneuver around the problem, several solutions are
on the table. One is to appoint a temporary
parliament, as the one of 1971, with the sole task
of passing all needed legislation for the reform
process, including the lifting of Article 8. It
would include all community leaders and
politicians, both from the Ba'ath and the
opposition. Such an appointed parliament, however,
would look and sound undemocratic, and might be
badly perceived by the Syrian public.
The
second option would be to appoint a parliament,
without calling it a parliament. It would be
something like a Council of Elders, or
Consultative Council (majlis shura). The
obstacle to that is that such a body would not
have legislative powers that could replace those
of parliament. It would be able to advise, but not
issue laws, and certainly not amend the
constitution.
A third option is to extend
the tenure of the sitting parliament, which ended
constitutionally in March. This parliament, in
which the Ba'ath dominates with a clear majority,
already had an extension on May 5. By law, if new
elections are not called for within 90 days, this
parliament gets automatically renewed "until a
call for elections takes place".
Some are
pushing for extending the life of this parliament
and calling for an extraordinary session on August
2, with the aim of passing all needed reform
legislation. Many argue that this would be too
late, given that by early August, the holy Islamic
month of Ramadan would have started, which many
predict will be very bloody between the street and
the government.
A fourth solution would be
to bypass parliament completely, based on Article
113 of the constitution, which gives the president
extraordinary powers to pass legislation - any
legislation - "if the country is facing a crisis
that is threatening national security". Based on
Article 113, the president can amend the
constitution at will, overpass parliament, and
basically, do anything he pleases - like amending
Article 8.
Though some believe Assad will
go beyond revoking Article 8 in Monday's speech,
realists warn against raising expectations too
high. They argue that Assad might lay the
groundwork for such far-fetching reform, but would
not personally take such a drastic measure. Assad
could still try to resurrect his popularity and
confidence, although it has been badly damaged.
Assad will be looking to the presidential
elections in 2014, which he could still win,
albeit not with a large majority.
Hardliners want to obstruct any reform
process, either because they do not fully grasp
the danger they face, or because they feel that
any real reforms will do away with all the
privileges they have enjoyed as Ba'athists for
over 40 years. Their only reasonable argument is
when asking: what to do with 55,000 employees of
the state who are employed by the Ba'ath Party?
If the party loses its supremacy role,
none of its organs can be funded by the state. The
party pays wages, after all, through the state, to
the Students Union, the Revolutionary Youth Union,
the Ba'ath Party newspaper, Ba'ath Party
administration officials, clerks, drivers, etc.
A real pluralist system does not threaten
them, for now, because they remain the largest
party with the highest organizational skills, and
treasury. They currently stand at 2.8 million, and
even if 2 million drop out if the party no longer
rules, they would remain 800,000 - larger than any
other in Syria.
In the new party law
draft, it must be noted, which is due for release
next week, any party that seeks official
recognition needs to ensure 3,000 members at
least. That clearly is exclusive to the Ba'ath -
for now.
Ending Ba'ath Party rule would be
a blessing in disguise for the Ba'athists. It
would rid them of all opportunists who joined the
Ba'ath for professional mobility and incentives,
and keep a small core group of people who truly
believe in the Ba'ath Party's ideology. It would
also give an impression that the state is serious
about reform, and about changing from within.
Sami Moubayed is a university
professor, historian, and editor-in-chief of
Forward Magazine in Syria.
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2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
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