People hold a large Syrian opposition flag at Umayyad Square in Damascus, on Monday.—AFP
The Syrian Baath Party announced its support for a transitional phase in Syria, after its defacto leader President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia and ended more than half a century of his familiy’s grip on power.
The party’s Secretary-General Ibrahim al-Hadid said in a statement, “We will continue to support a transitional phase in Syria aimed at defending the unity of the country, its land, people, institutions and capabilities.”
The Ba’ath Party in Syria , officially known as the Syrian Regional Branch, was founded on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq, Shibli al-Ayssami and Salah al-Din al-Bitar.
Shibli al-Ayssami was kidnapped by in Aley, Lebanon reportedly on orders by Assad and is presumed to be dead.
Aflaq was ousted during the 1966 Syrian coup d’état and died in 1989
Salah al-Din al-Bitar fled Syria country in 1966 following the coup and lived mostly in Europe and remained politically active until he was assassinated in Paris in 1980 by unidentified hitmen linked to the regime of Hafez al-Assad, father of the deposed president Bashar Al Assad .
The party ruled Syria continuously since the 1963 Syrian coup d’état which brought the Ba’athists to power until 8 December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in the face of a rebel offensive during the Syrian Civil War.
The 1963 Syrian coup d’état, referred to by the Syrian government as the March 8 Revolution , was the seizure of power in Syria by the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Ba’ath Party.
Hafez al-Assad was a key participant in the 1963 Syrian coup d’état
In February 1966 Hafez al Assad participated in a second coup, which toppled the traditional leaders of the Ba’ath Party.
He was appointed defense minister by the new government.
Four years later he initiated a third coup, which ousted the de facto leader Salah Jadid.
He appointed himself as leader of Syria and imposed various changes to the Ba’athist government when he took power.
When he came to power in 1970, he organised the state along sectarian lines (Sunnis and non-Alawites became figureheads of political institutions whilst the Alawites took control of the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and security apparatuses)
Ba’athist decision-making authority that had previously been collegial was reduced and given to him.
The Syrian government ceased to be a one-party system in the normal sense of the word and was turned into a one-party dictatorship with a strong presidency.
The Assad family’s personality cult was integrated with the Ba’athist doctrine to shape the state’s official ideology.
In reality the Baath party was ruling Syria by name only.
This may be the reason why the party declared its upport for the transitional phase.
The leader of the rebels who unseated Assad to take control of Syria, on Monday, began discussions on transferring power, a day after seizing power.
Assad’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Jalali, told Al Arabiya TV he had agreed to hand power to the Salvation Government, an administration based in a small pocket of rebel-held territory in northwest Syria.
He said the handover could take days to carry out.
The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, had met overnight with Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss a transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
Syrian rebels have tasked Mohammed Al-Bashir, a former head of rebel-held northwestern Syria, with forming a transitional government, according to local television.
Al-Bashir will lead this government to manage the transition and “prevent the country from descending into chaos,” the report stated, without providing further details.
Al-Bashir, an engineer from Idlib, had previously served as a minister in the rebel-controlled northwestern region of Syria. Earlier this year, he was appointed the head of the government in that area, which was supported and financed by HTS .
The decision to appoint Al-Bashir followed a meeting between him, HTS leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa (al-Golani’s real name), and current prime minister Ghazi al-Jalali, according to Arabiya TV.
Al-Golani remains the military leader and face of HTS and is expected to play a significant role in establishing the new government.