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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A legacy to live with
By Khaled DawoudFollowing the death of President Hafez Al-Assad on Saturday the ruling Baath Party acted quickly to ensure a smooth transition of power to his son, 34-year-old Bashar.
A few hours after Assad died the Syrian parliament met to amend the constitution, reducing the minimum age requirement to allow Bashar, who is 34, to succeed his father. Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam issued two decrees on Sunday, appointing Bashar as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and promoting him from colonel to lieutenant-general, while on the same day the ruling Baath party's highest decision-making body, the Regional Command, met behind closed doors and nominated Bashar for the presidential post.
The Baath party will hold its first general congress in 15 years on 17 June, a date set before Assad's death. They will elect 21 members to the Regional Command. It is almost certain to back Bashar as Syria's new president.
On 25 June the Syrian parliament will meet again to approve the Regional Command's nomination of Bashar, and will also set a date for a public referendum on the nomination within three months.
Once these steps are taken Bashar is unlikely to face any significant challenge to his authority. Indeed, claims by Assad's exiled brother, Rifaat, that he is more entitled to occupy the presidential post, have been ridiculed by most Syrians.
Sources close to the Syrian leadership told Al-Ahram Weekly that Hafez Al-Assad was aware of death approaching and acted to ensure that there would be no opposition to Bashar. In October 1999, Syrian forces cracked down on Rifaat's supporters in Latakia, closing down what authorities described as an illegal port under their control. According to the same sources, the anti-corruption campaign unleashed by the Syrian leadership three months ago did not only remove corrupt officials, but also possible challengers to Bashar's rule.
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters after meeting Bashar briefly at the People's Palace, where Assad's coffin was laid, that she felt that he would pursue his father's choice of peace as a strategic option.
President Hosni Mubarak delivered a strong message of support to Bashar, as did Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdel-Aziz and French President Jacques Chirac, the only European head-of-state to attend Assad's funeral.
A SMOOTH TRANSITION? The late Syrian president could have been bidding his people farewell, his hand lifted in salute or in mild protest at the approaching end, his gaze already somehow remote; his son and heir, Bashar, has since stepped squarely on to the stage, his fist raised in defiance or determination. It is still impossible to know, however, if Hafez Al-Assad was an institution unto himself, so powerful that Bashar, were he thus inclined, will find it impossible to dismantle his father's legacy
Israeli hopes, meanwhile, that Bashar may be more compromising than his father in demanding the return of "every single inch" of the occupied Golan Heights are likely to prove groundless. In fact, Assad's choice of Bashar may have been meant to pre-empt such compromises. The legacy of the man referred to as the builder of modern Syria and hero of Arab nationalism, will always haunt Bashar.
Bashar is expected to hasten moves towards economic liberalisation and allow a wider margin of democracy and participation in decision-making, according to Syrian analysts. But he won't be able to compromise on the Golan.
"Onward, Bashar, march, march towards the Golan's liberation," shouted the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who had gathered in Damascus' Ummayd square to attend their leader's funeral. The procession started at 8.00am on Tuesday when Assad's coffin was brought out of his home on Al-Malki Street, where he lived for the past 30 years. Bashar, with his family and members of the Syrian leadership, walked slowly behind the coffin, draped with the Syrian flag and carried by republican guards. Shortly before reaching the Ummayd square, the coffin was laid on a guncarriage pulled by an army truck. Contrary to the expectations of mourning Syrians, the cortege drove quickly through the square, allowing the hundreds of thousands gathered there to bid a quick farewell to the only leader the majority of them had ever known. Assad's coffin was then laid at the People's Palace for nearly six hours to allow visiting dignitaries to pay their last respects.
The body was later flown to Latakia in northwestern Syria aboard a presidential plane. After a 30km drive to Assad's birthplace of Kurdaha, a centre of the Shi'ite Alawite sect to which Assad belonged, an even more emotional farewell took place. The Muslim prayer for the dead was offered at Al-Sayeda Naa'sa mosque, named after Assad's mother who died in 1992. The charismatic Syrian leader was finally buried next to his son, Basil, a few hundred metres away from the mosque.
Basil, Assad's first born and original choice as successor, died in a car accident in 1994 after which Assad asked Bashar to cut short his study of medicine in Britain and return to Syria. Bashar subsequently received military training and was handed several important portfolios, including Lebanon.
Heavens open your door... Assad will be one of your visitors; With our blood, our souls, we will redeem you, Bashar; Don't say Hafez died, Hafez will remain alive; There is no God but God, Assad is the beloved of God -- so went the emotionally charged slogans chanted in the streets of Damascus and in Kurdaha. And although Syria is a republic, the choice of Bashar as Assad's successor has remained unquestioned by most Syrians. Parliament Speaker Abdel-Qader Qadoura rejected a question by a reporter on Monday on whether Syria was turning into a monarchy. "We have institutions here in Syria, and their choice was Bashar," he said.
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A new Assad, a new Middle East?
Focus on the death of
Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad
