Russia's 'democracy package' for
Syria By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - The Russians have been talking
a lot about a Yemeni solution for Syria, without
going into too much detail. Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov even said it publicly, twice, in
less than a week, impressed by the win-win deal
between Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and
his opponents.
Sources close to Moscow say
that a "Russian Initiative" will be announced for
Syria by late January, modeled after the Yemeni
one.
The initiative, apparently, will be
the brainchild of both the Americans and Russians,
but it will be packaged and marketed as a Russian
deal, from A to Z.
The United States does
not want to involve itself directly in Syrian
affairs at a micro-level,
since it is too busy with the 2012 presidential
elections and afraid that any outright US support
would harm the Syrian street.
Washington,
apparently, and much of the European Union, have
given the Russians carte blanche to come up with a
solution for Syria, in coordination with the Arab
League.
Russia would thereby guarantee
that American interests in Syria would be
preserved, vis-a-vis Syria's relationship with
non-state players like Hezbollah in Lebanon and
Hamas in Gaza, and its commitments to the peace
process.
They know the Syrian scene inside
out, after all, more so than the Americans or
Europeans, thanks to 50 years of daily hands-on
contact with Syrian officials. They know who
matters in the Syrian scene and can push the right
buttons - if they want - to make change happen.
They also have much at stake at ending the
stalemate in Syria, because it safeguards their
own interests in the Middle East. If the Syrian
regime falls, the Russians are certain, then so
will their influence in the Arab world.
In
order for this initiative to see the light, the
Russians need something tangible in their hands to
ward off critics of the Syrian government and
prove that Russia can deliver on Syrian affairs.
However, they have made little progress to
date, apart from a feeble political party law that
has failed to produce real and attractive parties
for Syrian activists fed up with 48 years of
Ba'ath Party rule.
Violence and killing
have continued since unrest broke out early last
year; so has the stubbornness of Syria's
Ba'athists not to give up - or even share - power.
Russia is unimpressed with how things are
developing internally in Syria. Serious Russian
discontent might explain why suddenly the Syrians
seem to be in a hurry, setting three important
dates in the next four weeks that aim at meeting
Russian demands.
Reportedly, the Russians
asked for three things first before laying out
their initiative for Syria: 1. A new
constitution that does away with the Ba'ath Party
monopoly. 2. A Ba'ath Party congress to lay
the political groundwork for post-Ba'ath Syria.
3. A cabinet of national unity that includes
heavyweights from the Syrian opposition.
The new constitution would reportedly be
out by mid-February, and Article 8 - which
designates the Ba'ath Party as "leader of state
and society" - will be omitted. The Ba'ath party
congress will be held in the first week of
February.
Talks are already underway with
the Coordination Council, an opposition coalition
that is headed by veteran opposition figure Hasan
Abdul-Azeem, to take part in the new government.
The cabinet, surely, must be headed by a
member of the opposition and not a Ba'athist, as
customarily has happened since 1963. It might see
the light, media sources are saying, before the
end of January.
The new constitution will
reportedly change the mechanism of how the prime
minister is selected. Since 1973, every premier
has been appointed directly - and dismissed - by
the president of the republic. He had vast
executive authority but no political clout or
influence whatsoever, although he was given a
ceremonial post on the ruling Regional Command of
the Ba'ath Party.
That has been changed,
and a new prime minister will be named by
whichever party wins a majority in parliament - as
was the case before the Ba'athists came to power
in 1963.
He/she will answer to the chamber
of deputies, which can appoint or dismiss a prime
minister at will, without resorting to the
president. Additionally, some of the president's
powers will be reduced and given to the prime
minister - which is another pressing Russian
prerequisite.
Among other changes in the
new charter is doing away with the Regional
Command's authority to name a presidential
candidate.
From now on, a presidential
candidate will need nomination from 20% of members
of parliament (which means 50 out of 250
deputies). A minimum of two candidates need to
emerge for presidential elections to take place.
It is unclear yet what the presidential term will
be, although independents and opposition figures
are pushing for five years, rather than seven,
renewable only once rather than open-ended, as the
current system says.
The new system, in
theory, would be a parliamentary democracy, and it
would lay the backbone of Syrian politics in the
upcoming period - perhaps leading to presidential
elections in 2012-2013.
If these changes
do materialize and don't get aborted by
hardliners, several opposition figures might agree
to join the cabinet - if such a move is presented
to them as part of a comprehensive "democracy
package" that has Russia's fingerprints, and
guarantees, all over it.
They would be
risking their names and careers, but a real
democratic outcome would be worth the trial. They
need to be given credible assurances, however,
that the state will be transformed dramatically,
in fact beyond recognition, from a police state
into a democracy, where freedom of speech, conduct
and assembly are guaranteed by law. The current
system, after all, cannot accept a democratically
elected prime minister from the opposition if he
speaks his mind and is popular on the street.
Neither Syria's state-run press nor the
intelligence services, and certainly not the
Ba'athists, would easily accept such a dramatic
change that does away with how they have been
doing things for years. Talks are underway,
however, with the Coordination Council, headed in
Syria by Hasan Abdul Azeem and in the diaspora by
internationally respect human-rights activist
Haitham Manaa.
He has been earmarked for
the premiership, although he has neither accepted
nor declined the job. He might accept - as a part
of a democracy package - but certainly not with
the current status quo of Prime Minister Adel
Safar, which would be political suicide for any
serious politician, whether an independent or an
opposition figure.
The Coordination
Committee, composed of Arab nationalist parties,
Nasserist politicians, Kurds and seculars, is
believed to be the all-time favorite of Arab
League secretary general Nabil al-Arabi - who is
an Arab nationalist at heart and in practice.
It includes respected names like Hussein
al-Odat, for example, a veteran Ba'athist with an
exceptionally unblemished record. Most of its
members have spent their careers in and out of
jail.
The Russians, who have invited the
Coordination Committee for talks in Moscow this
January, clearly favor this camp rather than the
Western-backed Syrian National Council (SNC).
In late 2011, they welcomed a delegation
from the SNC, but those talks ended in failure.
The Russians were pushing them to sit down for
talks with the regime, but the SNC insisted that
the only dialogue they would have with Syrian
authorities was on how to hand over power.
The Coordination Committee, however, is
coming across as more pragmatic, willing to talk
of sharing of power with the authorities as a
stepping stone towards democratizing the regime
from within.
Having said that, the
Coordination Committee is not as influential at a
grassroots level as the Muslim Brotherhood, which
is part of the SNC. Meaning, if such a deal does
see the light - and is backed strongly by Russia -
it still would not appease the angry Syrian
street, which is demanding nothing less than total
regime change.
Last week, the SNC signed a
rapprochement with the Coordination Committee,
which quickly collapsed - and was in fact torn
apart by members of the SNC. They claimed that its
president, Bourhan Ghalioun, had signed the deal
without consulting with the SNC's executive
council. Twenty-four hours after its signing, the
rapprochement collapsed, thereby failing, yet
again, at unifying the Syrian opposition.
Will all of these solutions ever see the
light, given the amount of anger and mistrust on
the Syrian street, the radicalization of Syrian
authorities, and the adamant refusal of opposition
figures within the SNC to endorse such a deal?
Much of its success depends on four
things: an end to all the killing and all military
operations; serious Russian pressure; the
readiness of the Syrian state to let go before it
is too late; and the upcoming report of the Arab
League Observers, which is due to be presented
this weekend.
If the report comes out
"soft" on Syrian officialdom - or divides the
blame 60-40 between them and "armed groups" on the
Syrian street, this might bring a deal with
someone like Manaa closer to reality. He would
need to be a real prime minister, with real
powers, authority, and following.
The
cabinet would also need real opposition figures to
lend their name and reputation to it, not
regime-friendly "soft" opposition figures who are
taken seriously by nobody - certainly not on the
Syrian street but also not in Russia or the West.
And Syria's new system would have to be a
democratic one where accountability, justice and
constitutionalism prevails - something that Syria
has not seen in nearly 50 years.
A
strong-worded League report that blames the Syrian
government in full for what is happening in Syria
would make it impossible for anybody who takes
himself seriously to accept the job of premier, if
he is going to be become another Adel Safar.
Russia pushed strongly for the league's
observers to drown a German proposal that
international observers come to Syria, hoping that
the League would "Arabize" the Syria case and help
undo the damage done to the image of the Syrian
regime in 10 months of violence, as a stepping
stone towards launching Russia's "democracy
package".
Sami Moubayed is a university professor,
historian, and editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine
in Syria.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
