The frame that once displayed Bashar al-Assad’s portrait on the wall of the Damascus governorate building is now exposed. Instead, the photographs serve as doormats for visitors and employees to step on, reminding them that they are in a new Syria.
Broken glass, broken furniture and crumpled flags littered the floor, a reminder of the rebels’ lightning-fast rise. But upstairs, administrators chosen by former rebels were already working to untangle the mechanisms and tortuous bureaucracy of Assad’s Baathist state.
On Tuesday, they gathered around 30 chiefs in an ornate room in a meeting witnessed by the Financial Times, whose focus was on the impending weeding out of incompetent officials in local government.
Officials involved in the transition promised to reconcile the rebel-held government in northwestern Idlib province, known as the Syrian National Salvation Government, with the capital, which has been in rebellion for 13 years, and create a new unified Syria. .
But the main opposition group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose roots are Sunni Islamists and former al-Qaeda affiliates, has left the broadly secular state with no choice but to take over after three days toppling Assad. There are serious concerns among some minorities as to whether the country intends to govern in this way. before.
“Everything will be one. All government institutions will be dismantled. There will be no salvation government, no factions, nothing,” said Mohammad Yasser, a rebel technocrat who was seconded from work to help reorganize Damascus governorate.・Mr. Ghazal (36) said. “Soon everything will be dismantled and become one Syrian Republic.”
Ghazal and his colleagues demonstrated strong command of the state apparatus they inherited just hours ago, hinting that HTS’ plans to overhaul it have been long in the planning. But the challenges they face are difficult. Syria’s dysfunctional state institutions were bloated by corruption, cronyism and centralized power during the Assad dynasty’s 50-year rule.
In his light Aleppan accent, Ghazal asked department heads to list their duties and explain the functions of their departments. The two-hour meeting showed how Assad’s regime “stopped in time,” he later told the FT in an interview.
Employees cited government handbooks from the 1930s and 1960s but were unable to answer direct questions about their jobs or explain why decisions were made. “There were a lot of problems, but they were being ignored,” he says. “They don’t think they’re responsible.”
One man identified himself as the head of the public relations department, which included the “international cooperation” and “festival and event management” departments. When asked what exactly the department would do, a civil servant answered, “Flags.”
“Is there a department for flags?” Ghazal asked incredulously.
“Yes, when foreign dignitaries come, we put up a lot of flags,” he said. “We hang them on poles. It’s a big job.”
The same department head also had a translation department, with two English-speaking employees. Ghazal asked if there were interpreters from Russia or Iran (nations that support the Assad regime and frequently send envoys), as representatives of these countries bring their own interpreters. , the answer was that there was no interpreter.
“But no English-speaking dignitaries visited?”
“No,” said the department head.
Ghazal shook his head. “It’s a hell of a state,” he said.
Ghazal will ultimately assume many of the governor’s duties in the newly created role of city council president. Ghazal, who grew up in the United Arab Emirates, pointed to his long beard as a sign of his devout religious beliefs, and left a career in civil engineering in Saudi Arabia in 2014 to move to Idlib, which was in the midst of a civil war. The urbane former engineer eventually helped establish the Syrian National Salvation Government four years later.
He met with the heads of various ministries in a room shaped like an auditorium. In keeping with the previous administration’s style, one person took the microphone and issued instructions to be followed without question. The names of former governors dating back 60 years were displayed in the golden hall, a reminder of the agreements the previous administration made with its supporters.
Civil servants were ordered to return to work this week after SSG leader Mohamed al-Bashir was appointed prime minister of Syria’s new interim government for the next four months. After the arrival of rebel-affiliated technocrats like Ghazal in Damascus, negotiations are underway in ministries across Damascus about its future shape.
On Tuesday night, President Bashir convened an SSG ministerial meeting with ministers from the outgoing government to begin the process of transferring power to a new interim government that will run until March. Behind him were the new Syrian flag and the HTS flag.
The Damascus provincial government has wide-ranging powers, ranging from approving barber licenses to landscaping, housing, construction, tourism and electricity. The day’s tasks included figuring out the extent of corruption embedded in the local government’s machinery, including eliminating phantom jobs whose purpose was to collect state salaries.
Ghazal spoke of “systemic corruption” and rampant bribery in government officials, saying “breadcrumbs” were being spread among government workers whose average salaries had been cut to the equivalent of $25 a month as a result of the devastating economic crisis that hit the country. He explained that this was the result of being paid. Its greedy ways spread discontent across Syria, making this bloated and powerless state the key to the regime’s collapse.
At the meeting, another man introduced the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Department. The department, which was created in 2012 to rebuild areas destroyed by civil war, has, like other departments, waited more than a decade for long-promised funding, which never came. Ghazal wrote down the information, muttering out loud in English, “It’s a fictional story.”
The atmosphere in the room was grim, but people felt comfortable enough to vent their grievances. One woman cried out about the discrimination she suffered under the former leader because she was a Christian, and accused the state of forcing her to pay a $25,000 bribe. Another woman accused her of lying.
Ghazal politely asked them to bring these matters up later and just carry on. He addressed employees with “excuse me” and “if you don’t mind,” but the man sitting in his seat rarely uttered such a respectful tone.
But old habits die hard. Employees referred to “crises” and “events” in a loose manner. This is the regime’s euphemism for the war that has devastated the country for much of the past two decades. “Which crisis?” Ghazal asked before realizing that this meant the rebellion and war to which he had devoted his life for the past ten years.
Ghazal spoke of the new government’s distaste for the ancestral procedures of the old regime. He said everything was digitized and IDs could be obtained in five minutes in a long-neglected corner of the country that was completely cut off after being taken over by rebels early in the conflict. In Damascus, it can take months and usually requires bribes.
It took 15 minutes for Financial Times reporters to receive media accreditation from the recently arrived government, something that would have been unimaginable in the previous Kafkaesque regime, which had not granted entry permits to Western journalists for years. That was the case.
Ghazal told the FT that while there is a technocratic government in place for now, moving forward with its plans “requires political approval (and action) for the terrorist designation, and I think that will happen soon.” spoke.
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The Islamist group HTS, once affiliated with al-Qaeda, has been branded a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the United States and other countries. Its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has been offered a $10 million bounty by the United States.
He severed ties with al-Qaeda in 2016 and sought to rebrand it as a more moderate government-in-waiting. But control in Idlib remains firmly in place, and UN agencies have documented abuses.
On Tuesday, outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Syria’s “transition process should lead to credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance.”
Ghazal argued that the state does not take into account the religious affiliation of civil servants, but only the value of the work each brings.
“You saw how the (Assad) regime raised them. They call us sidi (‘my masters’),” he said. “They feel broken. (We just want them to) get out of that mindset. You’re a self-respecting person, I’m not your master or anything. I’m just like you. I am an employee.”
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