ANALYSIS: Al-Assad's referendum is no cure for Syria crisis

Feb 23, 2012, 12:39 GMT

Beirut - A referendum on a new constitution in Syria set for February 26 is unlikely to end the year-long crisis, analysts say.

The opposition has rejected the draft constitution as a sham and says it will accept nothing less than the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years.

Activists and experts say that although the constitution paves the way for political pluralism in Syria it preserves the president's wide-ranging powers, including dissolving parliament, approving laws and appointing the government.

Such measures secure the Baath Party's hold on power despite the scrapping of a key article that made it the only legal political entity in Syria.

'The new constitution maintains the president's absolute powers,' said Mohammed Faour of the Carnegie Middle East Research Centre in Beirut. 'How can this referendum be successful when a whole section of the people is pursuing a popular revolt against the regime?'

The opposition says that under the new constitution the al-Assad regime would only allow groups loyal to the Baath Party to form political parties.

Opposition leaders point to Article 3, which stipulates that a presidential candidate must have lived in Syria for at least a decade and must be married to a Syrian. They say such curbs target political opponents who have lived in exile for many years and are married to foreigners.

It is also unclear how the vote could be held with many cities and towns besieged by government forces, which have been shelling Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods in Homs for 20 days.

'A referendum should only be held after the (Syrian) government discuses the proposed constitution with the opposition and halt all the violence,' said Lebanese analyst Amin Kammourieh.

About 14.6 million people of Syria's 23.6-million population are registered voters, according to government figures.

Prominent Lebanese politician, Walid Jumblatt, a one-time ally of Syria, has described the referendum as a 'heresy.'

'The draft constitution reeks of the smell of corpses and the rubble in Homs and other areas in Syria,' Jumblatt recently wrote in Al-Anbaa newspaper.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 7,500 people have been killed since popular protests erupted in March. The conflict increasingly resembles a civil war, pitting the Sunni rebels of the Free Syrian Army against government forces, whose commanders belong to al-Assad's Alawite sect.

'The new constitution implies major contradictions,' said Lebanese analyst Saad Kiwan. 'On the one hand, it bans the creation of political parties, or holding political activities based on religion, ethnicity and tribal affiliations. On the other, (it) clearly states that the president must be a Muslim and that the Islamic Sharia law must be a major source of legislation.'

Kiwan added: 'Instead of this referendum, the regime should have realized that there are people in the country who do not want it anymore.'