After toppling the regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief and commander-in-chief of the brand new administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has appointed Mohammed al-Bashir to steer a caretaker authorities till March 1.
The transfer goals to stabilise the nation by offering fundamental companies to civilians and stopping an influence wrestle between armed teams over state assets and ministries, specialists advised Al Jazeera.
“[A caretaker government is needed] to make sure the state retains functioning and that individuals have electrical energy, water sewage and the web,” mentioned Thomas Pierret, an skilled on Syria for the Institute for Analysis and Research of the Arab and Muslim World.
Nonetheless, the caretaker authorities – and HTS – may lose credibility if it refuses to share energy after three months, specialists have warned.
Right here’s what we all know concerning the caretaker authorities and its head:
Who’s Mohammed al-Bashir?
The top of the caretaker authorities is a technocrat who headed the Syrian Salvation Authorities (SSG) in Idlib, a province in northwest Syria.
After the Syrian rebellion erupted in March 2011, Idlib turned an opposition stronghold. By 2017, HTS consolidated management and created the SSG out of civilian technocrats.
“Mohammed al-Bashir … has executed a fairly good job in Idlib,” mentioned Robin Yassin-Kassab, an skilled on Syria and the co-author of Burning Nation: Syrians in Revolution and in Warfare.
“I perceive that it is sensible to scale [the Salvation Government] as much as the entire of Syria, for now,” he added.
Al-Bashir’s background in electrical engineering, undertaking administration and administrative planning suggests he has the skilled know-how to take care of fundamental companies within the nation, analysts mentioned.
He first emerged as a minister within the HTS-backed Salvation authorities in 2021, based on the caretaker authorities’s official web site
For 2 years, he served as the pinnacle of improvement and humanitarian affairs, based on Assaad Al Achi, government director of Baytna, a non-governmental organisation that supported native civil society teams in Syria all through the battle.
“He was undoubtedly interested by humanitarian work as a result of that’s the place the cash was,” Al Achi mentioned, referencing the SSG’s coverage of taxing help organisations.
On January 13, 2024, the Shura Council in Idlib elected al-Bashir as prime minister of the SSG.
Who’re the opposite ministers?
Al-Bashir has advised Al Jazeera Arabic that, in the interim, the ministers from the SSG would take over the nationwide ministerial portfolios. The present ministerial lineup is:
- Minister of Inside Mohammed Abdul Rahman
- Minister of Financial system and Assets Basel Abdul Aziz
- Minister of Info Muhammad Yaqoub al-Omar
- Minister of Justice Shadi Muhammad al-Waisi
- Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Mohamed Taha al-Ahmad
- Minister of Well being Mazen Dukhan
- Minister of Improvement Fadi al-Qassem
- Minister of Native Administration and Companies Mohamed Abdel Rahman Muslim
- Minister of Endowments Hussam Haj Hussein
- Minister of Schooling Nazir al-Qadri
- Minister of Increased Schooling and Scientific Analysis Abdel Moneim Abdel Hafez
Is there going to be a transition?
Regardless of al-Bashir’s outstanding function, Al Achi doesn’t imagine the caretaker prime minister has ambitions to consolidate energy over Syria.
“What worries me is that if [this caretaker government] extends [its term] for greater than three months, but when it only for three months … then that’s alright,” he mentioned.
Consultants are involved that HTS will attempt to rule all of Syria with an iron fist.
In response to a report by the Syrian Community for Human Rights, HTS subjected critics and opponents to enforced disappearances and tortured individuals to dying.
Al Jazeera requested the HTS media workplace to answer these allegations, however that they had not commented by the point of publication.
Setting as much as succeed
The caretaker authorities and HTS may ease considerations of an influence seize by proposing a roadmap detailing when negotiations with different stakeholders would start forward of forming a broader coalition, Yassin-Kassab advised Al Jazeera.
He added {that a} plan ought to goal to implement UN Safety Council Decision 2254, which requires a transitional interval of 18 months, throughout which an inclusive coalition will draft a structure and put together for elections below United Nations supervision.
“[HTS] have to say that is the start of a course of that can contain each facet of society and all political leaderships,” mentioned Yassin-Kassab.
“That will reassure Syrians and the worldwide group and provides the brand new authorities rather more legitimacy.”
Who’s going to pay for the transition?
Syria’s economic system is in tatters – the World Financial institution ranks its gross home product (GDP) at 129 out of 196 states.
HTS managed to boost income throughout its rule in Idlib by taxing residents, in addition to items and reduction passing via from the Turkish border. Nonetheless, it’s unclear whether or not the group has sufficient funds to bolster the economic system and provide fundamental provisions within the quick to medium time period.
Consultants imagine HTS could be incentivised to share energy by linking sanction reduction to political reforms.
Syria is on the US record of “nations that sponsor terrorism” and, on high of that, HTS is taken into account a “overseas terrorist organisation” by the European Union, Turkiye and the US.
The EU and US have additionally sanctioned a lot of the Syrian economic system, together with the power sector and the buying and selling of products associated to expertise or electrical energy provision, based on Human Rights Watch (HRW).
It’s crucial that HTS shares energy with different stakeholders and civil society with a view to persuade Syrians and the worldwide group that the group has modified, argues Yassin-Kassab.
“[I]t stays to be seen if that is the start of an influence seize by HTS and HTS-aligned civilian our bodies,” he advised Al Jazeera.
“I definitely hope not.”
