In a television interview, former Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam pointed out that the team brought in by President Bashar al-Assad as the new leadership for the Ba’ath Party “consists of old faces that were within the circle of influence of Maher al-Assad, and they worked in the security apparatus and the party overseeing what remains of the party. We cannot say that this team is new.”
Khaddam explained that “the role of the leadership of Qatar receded while the role of the president increased until he had legislative, executive, and supervisory powers over the judicial institution. With the increase in corruption, there was a kind of confusion that Hafez al-Assad tried to rectify at a Qatari conference in the early 1980s, but he failed because the division reached the heart of the regime. However, he managed to deal with the situation at the time.” He pointed out that “since 1998, the decision in the Syrian state has been in the hands of Bashar al-Assad, who was a ‘dictator’s chick’ and was surrounded by a group that increased in its suppression.”
Regarding the exclusion of Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa from the leadership of the Ba’ath Party, Khaddam said that “there are several possibilities behind that. The first is that he was entrusted by Walid Muallem to negotiate in Geneva, while the second possibility is that al-Sharaa’s role may have ended, but Assad dismissed him from the position of vice president.”
