Syria is run by a dual power system. To the outside, it presents the picture of a normal government: a well-ordered series of institutions of state (mostly created by Assad's regime itself), each having its place in a hierarchy laid down by the constitution (or sometimes by the statutes of the Ba'th party). These institutions include the presidency, the People's Assembly (parliament), and the cabinet. The party has its own institutions and its own hierarchy. In addition, a number of so called "popular organizations" represent distinct sectors of the population: among these are trade unions, professional associations, and the farmers and the students associations.

This formal system of government reflects the numerical strength of the components of the coalition described above . In the eyes of the ruling group, the system's main task is to create a sense of legitimacy and give an appearance of legality to the measures taken by the regime. In addition, it provides ample scope for rewarding supporters by appointing them to government posts. This creates a measure of social and economic mobility and in some cases access to the centers of political power.

Contrasting with this structure, a hidden side of the regime exists: the informal power exercised mainly by the heads of the security services and by senior army officers-in short, the men on whom the regime depends for its stability and its future. These officers have their place-some overtly, most covertly-in the ruling hierarchy. Their positions of power may not be recognized by the constitution, but they are indicative of the political weight and the intrinsic (rather than numerical) strength of the elements of the coalition.

To illustrate: Approximately 60 percent of the cabinet ministers, the members of the People's Assembly, and the deputies to the Party Congress are Sunnis--much like the percentage of Sunnis in the overall population. The informal ruling cadres, by contrast, attest to the real power and predominance of the 'Alawis: Close to 90 percent of the officers commanding the major military formations are 'Alawis, and so are most of the top echelons in the various security services.

The formal government apparatus is arranged along two parallel lines: the administration and the party. The constitution places the party and its institutions above the state administration, Clause VIII laying down that "the Ba'th Party leads society and the state and stands at the head of the National Progressive Front, which acts to unite the forces of the masses and to mobilize them in the service of goals of the Arab nation. (The National Progressive Front is a formal coalition of the Ba'th with other parties permitted to operate. Together, they make up a large majority in the People's Assembly.)

Party branches and cells are spread throughout Syria, and through them the party line is brought to everyone's notice. Every four years, the branches elect deputies to represent them at the Party Congress. The Congress in turn elects the top party institutions: the ninety-person central committee (al-Lajna al-Markaziyya) and the twenty-one-person Regional Command (al-Qiyada al-Qutriyya). The latter is the party's highest organ and therefore also the country's most senior body. Its role is evident from the constitutional provision laying down that a presidential candidate is to be approved first by the Regional Command, and only following such an approval is the People's Assembly free to approve his candidacy and to submit it to a public referendum. The top party position is that of secretary-general, currently held by Assad himself.

It should be added that, in theory, the Syrian Ba'th party is only part of a wider body, the all-Arab Ba'th. The individual parties in the various Arab countries, including the Syrian party, are supposedly subordinate to the so-called National Command (al-Qiyada al-Qawmiyya). In at least one case, in Iraq in 1963, the National Command actually demonstrated its superiority. Led by two of the party's founding fathers, Michel 'Aflaq and Salah ad-Din Baytar, it intervened in Baghdad and laid down for the Iraqi Regional Command the steps it should take in the domestic crisis that had erupted there. It then turned out that the line prescribed from Damascus in the name of the National Command was disastrous and caused the Iraqi party to lose power for some five years.

Today, the distinction between the "regional" (countrywide) and the "national" (all-Arab) level has become meaningless. From among the Ba'th parties in various Arab countries, only two have remained important--the Syrian and the Iraqi--but each denies the legitimacy of the other in terms of party politics and party ideology, and they are not on speaking terms.

Their rift spilled over into the smaller Ba'th parties elsewhere. In Lebanon, for instance, there used to be a pro-Syrian and, separately, a pro-Iraqi Ba'th. The latter was eliminated after the entry of Syrian troops into Lebanon. Whatever remains of the Jordanian and the Palestinian Ba'th parties is now dominated from Syria, just like the surviving Lebanese party. Syria thus also dominates the "national" party institutions, almost defunct though they may be. They are, however, still important enough--both as a lesson from the past and a possible hope for the future--for Assad to have placed himself at the top of the "national" hierarchy, together with his post as "regional" secretary-general of the Syrian party.

The formal government apparatus, though theoretically working in parallel with the party, is actually controlled by it. Control is maintained by filling almost all key posts with party members. The 250 members of the People's Assembly are elected by constituency elections once every four years. The parties making up the National Progressive Front-led, as has been seen, by the Ba'th-fill about 60 percent of the seats. The rest are independents. The constitution gives the Assembly the prerogative of naming a presidential candidate, but his name must first be approved and recommended to it by the Regional Command. The Assembly further enacts laws, approves the budget, pronounces on development plans, and ratifies international agreements. It is entitled to review government policies and to criticize them, as it deems necessary. As already mentioned, the regime has been endeavoring over the last few years to broaden the social composition of the Assembly by the inclusion of the Sunni business elite, especially that of Damascus-a group with whom it is trying to mend fences.

The executive power includes the president and the cabinet. The constitution describes the latter as the highest executive and administrative authority in the country. The president appoints the prime minister and the other members of the cabinet and they answer to him, but they are obliged to report to the Assembly on their activities. As has been seen, the various communities are represented in the cabinet roughly according to their percentage strength in the population. It is worth stressing this point: In the 1960s, 'Alawis and people from the peripheral areas of Syria (also for the most part members of minorities) were over-represented. Only after Assad's advent to power was the disproportion corrected.

Other parties allowed to operate in Syria include several varieties of communists and of Nasserists. They are no more than the mere remnants of earlier political groupings that have their roots in the politics of the 1950s and the 1960s. All are joined together in the National Progressive Front established in 1972 and headed by Assad. Alongside them, so-called popular organizations act as quasi-parties. They include professional unions, workers' organizations, the farmers' association, women's organizations, and others.

As against all these bodies, the informal apparatus centers mainly on the army and the security forces. Their influence cannot be overstated; it derives most of all from the basic fact that they hold the ruling coalition together. Among its prominent members are 'Ali Duba, head of the military security branch (Shu'bat al-Mukhabarat al-'Askariyya ) or the army's internal security service); Ibrahim Huwayji, head of air force security directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya); Bashir Najjar, head of the general security directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-'Amm); and 'Adnan Badr Hasan, head of the political security directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-Siyasi). To their ranks must be added a number of senior officers: corps commanders and the generals commanding the armored divisions deployed near Damascus. Among them are Shafiq Fayyad, commander of the third corps; Ibrahim Safi, commander of the second corps; 'Ali Hasan, commander of the Republican Guard unit; 'Ali Habib, commander of the "Special Forces" (commando units); and a few others. Together, they are responsible for the state's stability and, in large measure, are holding the key to its future.

Yet in the day-to-day life of society and in the functioning of the economy, the influence of this group of largely 'Alawi officers is felt much less than foreigners often assume. With the measure of stability already achieved, the regime's dependence on them is receding. Besides, they themselves view their environment almost entirely from the military and security angle and hold no strong opinions on social or economic issues.

It falls to the Ba'th party to try to mitigate the inherent contradiction between the formal and the informal government elites. It does so mainly by providing the ideological "envelope" for both. The party lays down the "correct" political, social, and economic lines binding on all who have a share in power formal or informal. Moreover, the party furnishes the interface where both elites meet and interact, the arena where they both gather, and the bodies in which both are represented. The party has its cells in the armed forces and the security services and, just like other branches, these cells elect their representatives to the higher party bodies. The central committee, for instance, has ninety members, including party functionaries of various types and ranks and individuals drawn from the higher ranks of the administrative bureaucracy, the armed forces, and the security services; nine members are senior 'Alawi officers and several are senior Sunni commanders. Such a composition is meant to give palpable expression to the superiority of the party over all other power elites, certainly over the army officers. (The regime never fails to speak of Syria's "ideological army,"-a term meant to convey that the armed forces act on behalf of the party and are the executors of its line.) It is in these party bodies that a dialogue between the formal and the informal power-holders can be conducted and frictions can be resolved.

Yet, the party apparatus has not always been able to assert its superiority over the military or to act as an effective moderator between the civilian elite and the senior officers. In 1969-70 for instance, both the party cadres and the institutions of the state sided, almost in their entirety, with Salah Jadid in his confrontation with Assad, who was then minister of defense and commander of the air force and was on his way to the top with the backing of the armed forces and the security services. Their support enabled him to complete his take-over in November 1970. Jadid's supporters were promptly purged from party bodies and the state service and replaced by men loyal to Assad.

A similar example is provided by the power struggle, in 1983 and 1984, between Assad and his brother Rif'at. For all intents and purposes, it was carried out within the ranks of the senior officers, who totally ignored the institutions of the party and the state. At the time, Assad was in bad health and the question arose of how to run affairs until his recovery. Assad's attempt to turn to the party and state bodies-by appointing a six-man interim body drawn from their ranks to exercise the president's functions temporarily-was countered by organized resistance on the part of the senior 'Alawi officers. They rallied around Rif'at Assad in an attempt to foil a move that they interpreted as intended to diminish their status or even to end 'Alawi dominance altogether.

As soon as Assad recovered, he confronted his brother and most of the officers who had backed Rif'at abandoned him and reaffirmed their loyalty to the president. But what is of concern here is not so much the eventual outcome but the fact that the confrontation was conducted within the higher ranks of the armed forces and security services, without reference to the party hierarchy or the "formal" state elite. It was only after the struggle had been decided in favor of Assad, and after Rif'at had in effect been removed from all positions of influence, that the outcome was formalized: a party congress, convened in January 1985, elected new higher party bodies in which Rif'at's supporters were no longer included.

Against the background of the structure previously described, Assad's personal role stands out all the more strongly: He heads the groups of both the formal and the informal power-holders and acts as the real strongman of both. As president, he heads the formal state apparatus; as secretary-general of both the Regional and National Commands, he leads the party hierarchy. Under the constitution, the president is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, giving him full control over the informal elite of the officers. But it is not the constitution that gives him his status: It is his authority as a strong and conniving leader.

© Copyright 1997-2004 United States Committee For A Free Lebanon. All rights reserved.

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