Bashar al-Assad came to power after the death of his father, Hafez, in 2000
The
conflict in Syria has drawn in major global powers, some supporting and
some opposing President Bashar al-Assad. The Assad family has ruled
Syria for more than four decades, but how did they rise to power?
Hafez
al-Assad was the architect of modern Syria. Following decades of coups
and counter-coups in Syria, Hafez used the network he had built in the
posts of Commander of the Syrian air force and Minister of Defence to
seize power in 1970.
To maintain his position, Hafez created a
system of divide and rule and personalised his power to such an extent
that it was he alone who held the state together. His successor would
inherit a weak government and state institutions.
It was Hafez's
eldest son, Bassel, that was groomed for power. But Bassel's death in a
car accident in 1994 thrust his brother Bashar to the fore. When Bashar
al-Assad assumed the presidency in 2000 following Hafez's death, many
expected him to be a chip off the old block, but this has not proved to
be the case.
When Bashar took over, he was obliged at first to
work with his father's coterie of revolutionary leaders - many of whom
had headed the state's key institutions, such as the security services
and military, for decades. But, in order to assert his independence, he
slowly pushed them aside in favour of his own close set of advisers.
In most cases, key ministries and state agencies had been under the purview of Hafez's trusted allies since the 1970s.
Although
these institutions were politically weak, they had served as important
vehicles of patronage and provided an essential link between the
presidency and its support base. As such, state institutions engendered a
strong sense of loyalty among their employees and beneficiaries and, in
doing so, became sturdy pillars of the state.
In this picture, taken around 1990, Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad and his wife Anisa Makhlouf pose with their children
(L-R) Maher, Bashar, Bassel, who died in a car accident in 1994, Majd
and Bushra
By pushing his father's peers aside, Bashar imposed
his own urban elite on society and undermined the integrity of key
institutions.
Hafez
rose to power with a generation of leaders that had emerged largely
from rural provinces and retained close links to their constituencies.
Bashar's inner circle, on the other hand, essentially comprises children
of the elite - a generation raised in the city, with no constituency
other than their own concentric networks of influence.
The extent
of Bashar's control was the subject of much debate right up to the
beginning of the uprisings in March 2011. There were questions over
whether Bashar was subject to the undue influence of powerful "barons"
and family members, including his sister, Bushra, her late husband, Asef
Shawkat, and his brother Maher.
Many concluded that Bashar was a
natural reformer and had every intention of opening Syria up, but was
constrained by his father's clique.
This was a simplistic
assessment of Bashar's character; Bashar carefully cultivated a number
of Western journalists, academics and policy-makers to help him appear
accessible, sympathetic and thoughtful.
Four years later, such a debate is moot.
Title : Syria: The rise of the Assads
Description : Bashar al-Assad came to power after the death of his father, Hafez, in 2000 ...
