For the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, Syria is preparing to seat a new parliament. On paper, this sounds like the dawn of a new era, a transitional assembly of 210 members, charged with the weighty task of drafting a new constitution. Two-thirds of these MPs have been “indirectly elected,” we are told, through a process meant to represent local councils and civic groups. The rest, ostensibly, were chosen by the people. It all looks like progress, a fragile democracy taking its first steps after decades of tyranny and war.
But beneath the ceremony and speeches lies an uncomfortable truth: Syria’s new parliament is being built on the same sand as its old regime, different faces, perhaps, but the same architecture of control.
When a political system begins with “indirect elections,” the warning lights should flash immediately. In Syria’s case, these indirect elections mean that most of the parliamentarians were selected not by the people themselves, but by networks of regional delegates, delegates who, in turn, were handpicked by provisional authorities, many with strong ties to armed groups, foreign sponsors, or remnants of the old regime. It’s democracy by relay, not democracy by choice.
The optics are intentional. It offers the world a picture of political rebirth: the photos of smiling delegates, the neat rows of ballots, the headline-friendly promise of a “new Syria.” But this kind of controlled participation is not a pathway to democracy; it’s a smokescreen for the concentration of power. It’s the kind of democracy Iran has perfected, where the parliament debates within the boundaries drawn by the supreme authority, or Afghanistan’s post-Taliban assemblies that could pass laws on everything except what truly mattered.
Syria, it seems, is walking a similar road: elections with predetermined outcomes, voices that echo rather than question, and the illusion of a people choosing their future while being carefully guided toward it.
Assad may be gone, but power in Syria remains fractured and jealously guarded. Warlords, militias, and external patrons, from Moscow to Tehran, Ankara to Washington, all have their fingers in the pie. Each faction wants its piece of the “new” Syria, and this parliament is less a house of the people than a house of brokers.
This is the tragedy of post-conflict nations that emerge from dictatorship. The people who suffered the most rarely end up shaping the future. Instead, those with guns, money, or foreign backing rewrite the rules. The language of “transition” becomes a convenient disguise for continuity.
The architects of Syria’s transition know this. They understand that stability sells better than freedom. They know that Western governments will quietly applaud any semblance of elections as long as it means fewer refugees, fewer bombings, fewer headlines. A parliament, no matter how hollow, provides exactly that kind of comfort.
The parliament’s main mission is to draft a new constitution. But constitutions are only as powerful as those who enforce them. What good is a bill of rights when the judiciary is toothless, or when militias control the streets? What meaning does “freedom of expression” have if journalists still disappear in the night?
A constitution can’t erase the trauma of a nation torn apart, nor can it balance the scales of justice when so many crimes remain unpunished. Yet, this is what Syria’s new parliament claims it will do: create a “foundation for unity.” In truth, it may only formalize division.
If past transitions are any guide, the new constitution will be designed to look modern, perhaps even liberal, while embedding enough loopholes to preserve the influence of the country’s dominant factions. There will be clauses about national sovereignty, unity, and the “protection of moral values.” There will be new titles, perhaps a ceremonial president or a collective council, but the real authority will remain shadowed, unaccountable, and unelected.
Syria’s parliament is not the first to emerge from the rubble of dictatorship wearing the mask of democracy. It won’t be the last. The international community loves the ritual of elections, the inked fingers, the televised counts, the slogans about hope. But rarely does it ask what happens after the cameras leave.
For Syrians, who have endured more than a decade of war, exile, and loss, the promise of democracy should mean something more than symbolic seats in a controlled chamber. It should mean justice for the tortured and displaced. It should mean a real say in how their towns are rebuilt, who governs them, and how the future is shaped. But instead, they are being offered a parliament that looks democratic enough to pacify donors, but not democratic enough to empower citizens.
The danger of such false beginnings is that they kill genuine hope. When people see democracy performed as theater, when they watch yet another elite bargain masquerade as reform, they learn to distrust the very idea of representation. That distrust doesn’t vanish; it festers, waiting for the next strongman who promises order over empty freedom.
Even in absence, Bashar al-Assad’s presence haunts this transition. His ghost lingers not in portraits, but in practices: the secrecy, the centralization, the quiet understanding that real power lives outside the parliament’s walls. His style of governance—top-down, opaque, loyalist—has seeped into the bones of the system. The uniforms may be different, the speeches more polished, but the impulse to control remains the same.
True democracy cannot grow from the habits of dictatorship. It requires a radical break, a willingness to trust the people who were silenced for so long. That trust is nowhere to be found in Syria’s transitional process. Instead, the new order seems built to manage dissent, not invite it.
For now, the world will watch Syria’s new parliament with cautious optimism. There will be handshakes, photo ops, perhaps even aid packages tied to “progress.” But beneath the polite applause, many will know what this really is: an illusion of sovereignty, a performance of democracy designed to reassure the world that Syria is healing.
Yet healing demands honesty. And the truth is, a parliament without genuine power, elected by proxy, cannot rebuild a nation torn apart by tyranny. Syria’s people deserve more than a symbolic chamber, they deserve a voice that matters. Until that day comes, this parliament will remain what it is now: a carefully constructed mirage shimmering over the ruins of a broken land.
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