While the demands of the protesters in Syria are similar to those of the country's opposition parties, the demonstrators have rejected their leadership, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus Syria's opposition parties are based both inside and outside the country, and they include parties of Islamist, Nasserist, communist or liberal leanings, as well as Kurdish parties of various stripes. While these parties differ in outlook and ideology, making it difficult to bring them together under one umbrella, the majority of them converge on at least basic goals. However, while these goals are shared by the protesters currently demonstrating against the regime in Syria, they have thus far rejected the parties' leadership. More active after Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad came to power in 2000, the country's opposition parties were at first optimistic about Al-Assad's vaunted commitment to increasing freedoms, democracy and civil society in Syria during his swearing-in ceremony, making a welcome change to the three decades of oppression suffered during the rule of his father Hafez Al-Assad. However, such hopes were swiftly disappointed, the regime soon banning the cultural events that had hosted dialogue between the various opposition parties, the latter returning to secret or quasi-clandestine activities as a result of persecution by the authorities. Members of the Syrian opposition have been routinely arrested under the country's emergency law, and the monopoly exercised by the ruling Syrian Baath Party on power has made it impossible for them to participate in the country's established political life. Among prominent opposition parties in Syria are the National Democratic Bloc, an alliance of seven leftist and nationalist parties created in 1979. These include the Arab Democratic Socialist Union, the People's Democratic Party, the Arab Democratic Baath Party, the Arab Socialist Movement and the Revolutionary Workers' Party. These parties, along with the Communist Labour Party and a handful of Kurdish parties, form the left and nationalist wings of politics in Syria and the main opposition bloc. Syria also has various opposition parties having a liberal ideology, including the Liberal Democratic Bloc, the National Democratic Nahda Party, the Free Democratic Tagammu and the Alliance of Free Nationalists, though these are smaller parties having lesser influence. Islamist parties are banned in Syria, and those that exist clandestinely, including the Islamic Liberation Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, also active outside Syria, are viewed by the regime as the most threatening to its rule. Anyone affiliated with these parties risks execution under Law 49, which was issued after Islamist contestation in the 1980s. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was one of the region's most powerful Islamist organisations in the 1950s and a major partner in the World Alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Syrian opposition also includes some 12 Kurdish parties, many of which are allied to each other. These include the Kurdish Democratic Alliance, the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party and the Democratic Kurdish Front, made up of the Kurdish National Democratic Party, the Kurdish Left Party and the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, as well as independent parties such as Azadi, the Kurdish Democratic Party, the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party and the Kurdish Future Party. Assyrian opposition parties are also active in Syria, including the Assyrian Democratic Organisation, which insists on its Syrian identity and national affiliation. In addition to the formal political parties, the country's opposition also includes the committees formed after Bashar Al-Assad came to power in order to try to revive civil society in the wake of his father's rule. These committees have played a critical role over the past decade in what has become known as the Seminar Movement and the Damascus Spring. Mostly composed of intellectuals and activists of different political stripes, as well as independent figures, the committees should be added to the various Syrian human rights groups, also playing a vital role over the past decade and headed in the main by members of the leftist, nationalist and Islamist political parties. Among the committees set up over the past decade to revitalise civil society is the Damascus Declaration for National Democratic Change, established in 2003 and associated with Syrian opposition parties calling for fundamental political change. In 2006, the Syrian authorities arrested the group's leaders, sentencing them to three years in prison, though many of them have been released early. Alongside opposition parties operating inside Syria, there are a number of parties based abroad, though their influence within the country has been miniscule or non-existent. They include the National United Tagammu led by Rifaat Al-Assad, uncle of President Al-Assad who lives in exile, and the Syrian Reform Party, which has ties to the US administration. Both these parties have been boycotted by counterparts inside Syria. The Syrian Democratic Alliance is also active in Europe, and this brings together emerging groups of Kurdish, leftist and liberal leanings and holds seminars and meetings in the European capitals. However, like other opposition groupings working outside Syria, the Alliance has little influence inside the country. Other embryonic groups present in Europe include the Syrian Modernity and Democracy Party and the National Democratic Tagammu Party. All the Syrian opposition groups have long demanded that the regime carry out political, economic and social reforms in order to build a state founded on law, respect for human rights, political pluralism, peace and the rejection of violence. All the groups reject foreign interference in Syria, and many demand a constitution that would guarantee the separation of powers, the establishment of an elected parliamentary body, and the peaceful rotation of power through pluralistic and transparent elections. Over the past four decades, the country's opposition has been forced to work in the shadows, with hundreds of activists being persecuted or detained. When Bashar Al-Assad became president a decade or so ago, many of the parties tried to work more openly, but none of them have received official authorisation. Speaking last week at a time when US and EU sanctions against the country were being stiffened, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said that "there is no organised opposition in Syria," a statement with which the Syrian opposition begs to differ. According to Hassan Abdel-Azim, secretary- general of the Arab Democratic Socialist Union and spokesman for the National Democratic Bloc, "there is an organised nationalist opposition in Syria." In comments made to Al-Ahram Weekly, Abdel-Azim described the make-up of the Bloc, explaining that it "includes political parties in national democratic alliances, as well as prominent nationalistic figures, opposition thinkers and intellectuals." "All these figures are united in their demands for peaceful and national democratic change in Syria. They are looking for political solutions to the situation in Syria, instead of the security solutions pursued by the regime." Abdel-Azim, recently arrested and kept in detention for two weeks by the regime, said that "even if the regime and the EU ignore the opposition, that does not mean it does not exist. The Syrian opposition includes Arab, Kurdish and Assyrian parties, as well as nationalist and leftist parties, that are working in coordination with each other. The opposition parties in Syria genuinely represent opinion on the Syrian street." The fundamental aim of the opposition is to introduce a pluralistic and democratic system in Syria, the first step being to amend the existing constitution to eliminate Article 8 that states that the Baath Party is the leader of the state and society. The opposition is also united in its aim of introducing a free press in Syria and allowing political parties to participate freely in the country's political life. All this has been rejected by the regime, which refuses dialogue and has said that it will only implement reform at its own pace. Despite the opposition's united aims, observers believe that the opposition parties have had minimal influence over the present uprising in Syria, with opposition party leaders having played no role in the protests. The demonstrators do not deny the opposition's struggle against the regime, observers say, though they have refused to take orders from opposition leaders or to accept them as their representatives. Instead, the protesters say that they should be invited to any eventual dialogue with the authorities as an independent party in their own right, alongside the country's longer-established opposition parties, which they see as allies, if not leaders.
