Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Shara announced late Saturday that the formation of a caretaker government will lead the country through a critical transition as it emerged from the Iron Head of the Assad family from more than 50 years of dictatorship.
Mr. Al-Shara led the coalition of the rebel coalition to overthrow the Assad regime, and he appointed a new group of ministers, each with hundreds of VIP spectators in the presidential palace up the hill up Damascus.
His administration included some experienced officials and a woman – but he appointed important allies to the Ministry of Defense, Foreign Affairs and the Home Affairs.
Since then, the rebels who removed President Bashar Assad have been the de facto authority in Syria since then. Mr. Al-Shara was appointed interim president and oversaw the transitional government.
Mr. Al-Shara's early promise was to form a caretaker government by March, which would be held in the country until elections could be held. He said it could take four years to hold the election as the country is in chaos.
The composition of the new government announced on Saturday, including key cabinet positions, is widely seen as a touchstone test to show whether Mr. Al-Shara extends any real power beyond his close ally and is good at creating an inclusive government that represents all the different religions and ethnicities in Syria.
The caretaker government will be in power for five years, allowing for detailed introduction of the provisional constitution adopted this month, allowing for the adoption of a permanent constitution and holding elections.
Saturday's announcement showed Mr al-Shara partially succumbed to pressure from Syrian society and minorities, and the foreign government was considering a requirement to lift sanctions.
To clearly pay tribute to these critics, Mr. al-Shara replaced his brother as Minister of Health and appointed two popular activists to serve as ministries. Raed Al-Saleh, head of the White Helmet Civil Defense Organization, was appointed Minister of Disasters and Emergency, and Hind Kabawat helped organize the recent National Dialogue, was appointed Minister of Social Affairs – The Lonely Women's Appointment.
Towards an important gesture to the country's Kurdish minority, Mr. al-Shara appointed the Kurdish Minister of Education, which will closely monitor how it handles the rewrite of the education system of the Assad regime.
Many Arab and Western leaders say that full links with the new Syrian government will only occur when a political process reflecting the country's racial and religious diversity is established—including punishments for exemption of Western sanctions.
While leading the transitional agency, Mr. al-Shara placed the allies in key government positions, effectively transplanting the provincial government he once led in the rebel-controlled city of Idlib.
The announcement of the new government is a month At Mr. al-Shara, a meeting of Syrians from all over the country was convened to share the opinions and suggestions of the Provisional Government.
Pressure for changes to Mr al-Shara has grown at home and abroad after violence occurred this month in the coastal areas of Syria. A conflict broke out between the Assad regime and the remnants of the government's security forces. The war monitoring group of the Syrian Human Rights Observation Group said more than 1,000 people were killed, many of them civilians.
Mr. Al-Shara also reached important agreements with U.S.-backed Kurdish militias and controlled much of northeastern Syria and reached important agreements with Druse leaders in the south of the country.
The Constitutional Declaration announced this month was proposed by a committee of experts led by a professor of constitutions. It retains a strong presidential system, granting the president and appointing Supreme Court judges and one-third of the members of parliament.
But this also sets the separation of government branches and an independent judiciary “only legally bound”, a breakthrough in the authoritarian state run by Mr. Assad.
The Constitutional Declaration also complies with the provisions of the old constitution, and the president must be a Muslim. It also guarantees freedom of opinion, expression, information, publishing and news.
Some groups have criticized the Provisional Constitution because they do not recognize the racial and religious groups in Syria or establish a power-sharing system. But other analysts and democratic activists describe it as a good temporary document that can remain stable and allow further changes to time.
Ibrahim Draji, a law professor at the University of Damascus, said in a public discussion in the city that the three-month restriction of the state of emergency and other restrictions on the military and security sectors are new safeguards, new safeguards for the return to the dictatorship.
But another lawyer for the event, Faeq Huaiji, co-founder of the Syrian NGO, raised some concerns, including the provisional constitution that does not provide for proper inspections of the president.
Muhammad Haj Kadour Contribution report.
