As reform falters, Syrian elite tighten grip

When Mohammed Naji al-Otari was sentenced to several months in prison for corruption in the mid-1980s, most residents of this city in northern Syria assumed that his political career was over.

They were wrong. Last week, Mr. Otari was appointed prime minister of a new government in Damascus, pledging to stamp out the rampant corruption that continues to stifle economic growth and hamper much sought-after political reforms.

Otari's appointment and the composition of his 31-member cabinet - which proportionately contains more members of the ruling Baath Party than the previous government - has come as a blow to reformers and Syrian human rights activists as well as ordinary Syrians. There is a palpable sense of disillusionment here as hopes of tangible political and economic reform fail to materialize. Faith in Bashar al-Assad, Syria's youthful president, is being replaced by a sullen resentment at his apparent inability to curb the excesses of the powerful and super-rich clique of regime leaders.

Although there is little prospect of significant domestic instability in the near future, cracks in the 40-year-old Baathist edifice are beginning to appear. And analysts, economists, and diplomats believe that unless a concerted effort is made to usher in a genuine and effective reform program, the country could be heading for serious trouble in the long run.

"The mood is getting desperate and hope is going down," says a political analyst and onetime supporter of President Assad. "Eventually this is going to blow up in our faces if we don't attend to our domestic problems."

The current mood is very different from the one that greeted Assad when he succeeded his father, Hafez, as president in July 2000. Many Syrians believed that a new era of political reform, economic growth, and civil society was about to dawn. Political discussion groups - known as salons - emerged, providing venues for free speech and political discourse. But the regime soon developed cold feet, disbanding the salons and arresting some opposition activists. Suddenly, "economic reform" became the slogan. The political reforms would follow, the regime said, once the economy had been knocked into shape.

Although some economic measures were adopted - such as permitting the creation of private universities and private banks - investors continue to shy away and the economy has failed to move beyond a paltry growth rate of around 3 percent per year.

"We should be growing by 6 to 7 percent a year if there was clarity of vision and a proper reform program," says Nabil Sukkar, a former economist at the World Bank who runs a think tank in Damascus.

Bouthaina Shaaban, the minister of expatriates in the new government, admits that much needs to be done, but denies that the reform program has stagnated.

"There has been great progress in economic and political reform, but perhaps not in the usual way," she says. "Reform is taking place in the ministries and [government] institutions. We are trying to restructure ministries and bring in qualified and transparent people who will respond to the vision of a modern Syria. We have very urgent work to do to strengthen and enhance administrative reform."

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