As reform falters, Syrian elite tighten grip

But opposition activists say they are unimpressed.

"We hoped for political reform, we were promised economic reform and now they talk about administrative reform after three years of failure in economic reform," says Raja an-Nasr, a lawyer in Aleppo and a member of the opposition Democratic Party Assembly. "The government has it the wrong way around. Without political reform there can be no economic and administrative reform," he says.

Mr. Nasr was one of 20 activists arrested last month in Aleppo for holding illegal political gatherings. He and his colleagues are due to appear before a military court next month on charges of belonging to a secret organization and undermining national unity. If convicted, they face a jail term of six months to three years.

"None of us are afraid of going to prison," Nasr says. "When we started our campaign we knew that we could end up in prison."

Three years after the death of the redoubtable Hafez al-Assad, fear of the regime is beginning to fade as resentment builds. People are more willing to criticize the regime in public, a slight lowering of the voice the only concession to the pervasive mukhabarat, or secret police. And there are other subtle signals that suggest the state's steely grip is weakening. Syria's maligned and marginalized Kurdish population has boycotted parliamentary and regional elections in the past year, an unthinkable gesture during Hafez al-Assad's day.

There is also growing bitterness toward the "nouveau riche," Baath Party apparatchiks who have amassed fortunes in the past three decades, often in illicit businesses such as drug smuggling and usually at the expense of the traditional Sunni Muslim merchant classes in cities like Aleppo. Even the Alawite community - the minority Muslim sect to which the Assad family belongs - is beginning to show signs of discord according to analysts and diplomats here. Hafez al-Assad always ensured that positions of influence in the regime were apportioned equitably among the various Alawite clans.

Since his death, however, power and influence have become centralized within the Assad clan.

Even the military and intelligence services are not the formidable entities they once were - Syrian Army officers can sometimes be found moonlighting as taxi drivers.

"The elements that held the state together are not there anymore," says a diplomat in Damascus. "The security services are eroding, the climate of fear is eroding, discipline in the Army is eroding."

The question everyone asks but no one can answer is whether Assad is a genuine reformist whose ambitions are thwarted by influential members of his family and the regime or is cast from the same uncompromising dictatorial mold as his father. In fact, it is probably a bit of both.

"He probably would like to see the economic performance improve, and I believe he genuinely wants to see a modern Syria. But I am not sure at all that he wants to implement reforms that will weaken his grip on power," the diplomat says.

And it is that apparent contradiction that some analysts believe spells trouble for the future.

Page: 1 | 2