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Syria - Government

The development of a new Syrian Constitution could take up to three years, and holding elections could take up to four years. This was stated 29 December 2024 by the de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, commenting for the first time on a possible election schedule after the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Sharaa leads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, which toppled Bashar al-Assad on December 8, ending decades of Assad family rule and a 13-year civil war. He said HTS would be disbanded at a national dialogue conference. Sharaa also expressed hope that the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump would lift sanctions imposed on Syria. Senior US diplomats who visited Damascus said Sharaa had proven to be pragmatic.

The dynastic dictatorship of the Assads, which had ruled the country for more than half a century, collapsed within a few days. In the last presidential elections in 2021, according to official data, 95.1% of Syrians voted for Bashar Assad. Assad Jr.'s power apparatus numbered several hundred thousand people - the army, security services, personal guards. The entire repressive machine was helped to create, train and support by the Russians - according to their own standards and by their own example. Assad's political regime was neither soft nor lenient: prisons were overflowing with political prisoners, people were punished for any manifestation of disloyalty.

On the morning of 08 December 2024, representatives of the armed opposition in Syria seized the state television and appeared on air, claiming they had taken control of the country. Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali stated that he, along with several ministers, remained in Syria and had established contact with the opposition. "We are ready to cooperate with any government that Syrians choose," al-Jalali said. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that after negotiations with various participants in the Syrian conflict, President Bashar al-Assad decided to step down and leave Syria, giving instructions for a peaceful transfer of power. Russia, however, did not participate in the negotiations.

Much work needed to be done in Syria to ensure an orderly transition of power after 14 years of internal conflict, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. "After 14 years of brutal war and the fall of the dictatorial regime, today the people of Syria can seize an historic opportunity to build a stable and peaceful future ... There is much work to be done to ensure an orderly political transition to renewed institutions," Guterres said in a statement.

Syria’s newly adopted constitution faced criticism from legal experts and political groups arguing that its loopholes could deepen division and instability in the conflict-ridden country. Three months after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration 14 March 2025 that would serve as Syria’s constitution during the five-year transitional period. Al-Sharaa — leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that spearheaded the offensive against Assad’s leadership in December 2024 — said following the signing ceremony that he hoped the document would mark “the beginning of a new history for Syria, where oppression is replaced by justice, destruction by construction, ignorance by education and torture by mercy.” The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in north and east Syria, a de facto civilian authority affiliated with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that controls nearly one-third of Syria’s territory, was the first to reject the constitution, calling it exclusionary. “The so-called constitutional declaration contains a framework and articles similar to those adopted by the Baath government,” it said, referring to the ruling party that governed Syria from 1963 to late 2024. Legal experts also argue that the 53-article document fails to adequately reflect Syria’s realities, particularly its ethnic and religious diversity. “The draft speaks generally of Syrians who resisted the regime, without distinguishing between Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and other ethnic groups,” said Jian Badrakhan, vice chairman of the Germany-based Kurdish Center for Studies and Legal Consultancy. “However, Article 1 explicitly uses the term ‘Arab’ in the country’s name, undermining the inclusive language found elsewhere in the document.” Badrakhan said that “the absence of any reference to the Kurds, as the second-largest ethnic group in the country, or to the Assyrians, one of Syria’s oldest indigenous peoples, is a clear rejection of Syria’s multicultural identity.”

The constitution defines Syria as an Arab republic and mandates that the president must be Muslim. Additionally, it limits official recognition to “heavenly religions,” referring to Abrahamic faiths like Christianity, Islam and Judaism. “This effectively denies recognition to several long-standing religious communities in Syria, including the Yazidis and Druze,” Badrakhan said. “Over time, this provision could also be interpreted as a means to exclude the Ismaili and Alawite sects [of Shiite Islam] from formal recognition.”

Arabs constitute 50% of Syria’s nearly 24 million people, while Alawites, Kurds and Christians make up 35%. The remaining percentage is made up of Druze, Ismaili, and other ethnic and religious groups.

There are also concerns that the temporary constitution grants vast powers to the interim president and promotes Islamist ideology. Al-Sharaa’s HTS is an Islamist group that is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. “The constitution says there is separation between government branches, but that is clearly false,” said Sarbast Nabi, professor of political philosophy at Koya University in Iraqi Kurdistan. “Article 24 stipulates that the president gets to pick 20 percent of members of the transitional parliament, which shows there is no separation between the executive and legislative branches,” he told VOA, adding that the document “will not achieve stability in Syria.” The constitution justifies the inclusion of the clause “to ensure fair representation and efficiency.”

Anwar al-Bunni, co-founder and executive director of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, said that while the constitutional declaration has some promising provisions – such as the creation of a commission for transitional justice and the establishment of political parties and associations – there are significant concerns. “The declaration oversteps its role as a constitutional declaration, functioning more like a mini-constitution by predetermining the name of the republic, designating Islam as its main source of legislation and defining presidential powers – effectively undermining the will of the Syrian people,” he said. “All ethnicities and religions in the country want constitutional guarantees,” al-Bunni said. “Since this is a temporary document, the formation of a permanent constitution must include discussions over all these points and issues.”

Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said in a statement Friday that he “hopes this [constitutional declaration] will move Syria toward restoring the rule of law and promoting an orderly inclusive transition.” Since Assad’s fall, the U.S. and other Western nations repeatedly called for an inclusive government in Syria that protects the country’s ethnic and religious groups.