Long road ahead for Syria’s constitutional committee
It took almost two years of arduous negotiations to agree on the formation of the Syrian constitutional committee, which was formally announced by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week. The move, praised by both the Syrian government and the opposition, is now seen as the first serious step to engage the parties in a political process that aims to deliver a new constitution and, ultimately, lead to free and open elections in the wartorn country. The 150-member committee, made up of government, opposition and civil society representatives, will meet on Oct. 30 in Geneva.
But it is too early to make presumptions about the committee’s prospects for success. There are major obstacles in its path and the first has to do with its mandate. The regime’s Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem has said that the committee should consider amending the 2012 constitution, while the opposition wants to draft a new one. The focus will be on the wide-ranging authorities that the president holds under the current constitution. The opposition wants such powers to be in the hands of a freely elected parliament: A key issue that the regime will surely oppose.
Al-Moualem added that the work of the committee will have no effect on the current military operations to rid the country of “terrorists” and “foreign troops.” The opposition has called for a truce in the rebelheld northwestern province of Idlib, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are wedged between government soldiers and fighters belonging mostly to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham. While an all-Syrian dialogue is an important development in the eight-year civil war, foreign influence is likely to play a major role in the course of the talks. Russia, Turkey, Iran and the US all have a presence in Syria and their interests and objectives are at odds with each other. The core of the talks in Geneva will eventually center on one critical point: The fate of President Bashar Assad.
The regime, which has managed to reverse its fortunes following Russia’s military intervention four years ago, will do its utmost to reject attempts to draft articles that will undercut the president’s prerogatives.
The process will represent an opportunity for all parties to claim that a political solution is being debated. For the regime, it will send an important message to the world that it is being rehabilitated after years of isolation. For the opposition, which has suffered from divisions and a lack of leadership, it is a form of recognition by the regime. But those who believe that the process will deliver a political solution will likely be disappointed.
Russia will continue to stand by the regime and the same goes for Iran. For Turkey, its objectives are in conflict with those of its allies. The goals of the US, which backs Syria’s Kurds and has soldiers on the ground, are unclear.
It is probably misleading to describe the Geneva process as launching a Syrian-Syrian dialogue. The fate of Syria lies, unfortunately, not in the hands of Syrians but somewhere behind closed doors in Moscow, Tehran, Ankara and Washington. While this latest political process can only be viewed as a positive move, we should be careful not to pin high hopes on its outcome.