Bashar al-Assad.. the last heir to the collapsed Baath Party after 61 years of ruling Syria

After more than 13 years of war that erupted due to the use of violence to suppress the popular movement demanding freedom in 2011, the bloody regime of Bashar al-Assad, the last heir to the Arab Socialist Baath Party that ruled Syria for 61 years, has collapsed.

On November 27, clashes escalated between armed factions opposed to the regime and Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria.

During the period from November 30 to December 7, these factions were able to impose their control over major Syrian cities such as Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Homs.

On December 7, popular crowds came out in support of the factions as they began to enter the capital, Damascus, which led to the collapse of the regime after it lost complete control over Damascus and many other areas, forcing the regime’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, to flee the capital.

With the fall of the bloody Baath Party regime that lasted for 61 years, and the Assad family’s rule that lasted for 53 years, attention turned to what happened during the era of the Arab Socialist Baath Party and the last heir to the regime, Bashar al-Assad.

The Arab Socialist Baath Party, which ruled Syria for 61 years.

After Syria's independence in 1946, the Baath Party was founded in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in 1947, supporting the idea of establishing a "single Arab socialist state" in the Middle East.

In the 1950s, the Baath Party merged with the Arab Socialist Party to continue its political existence under the name of the Arab Socialist Baath Party.

In 1963, the Arab Socialist Baath Party seized power in a military coup, and Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, had been active in the party since his youth.

In 1970, Hafez al-Assad carried out an internal coup within the party to become President of Syria in 1971.

After the death of Hafez al-Assad on June 10, 2000, the laws that required the Syrian president to be 40 years old were amended to reduce this age to 34 years.

In this way, Bashar al-Assad won the presidential referendum with 97 percent of the votes, and became the president of Syria. In the same year, he married Asma al-Akhras, whom he met in London.

After he came to power, Syria witnessed what was known as the "Damascus Spring", a phase of openness in the areas of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression, but it ended in February 2001, and the regime returned to moving away from political reforms under the pretext of foreign policy problems.

In October 2005, many Syrian dissidents signed the "Damascus Declaration" calling for democracy and reform, but some were imprisoned or forced to emigrate.

He accused the opposition of "terrorism."

With the onset of the “Arab Spring” in 2011, protests erupted in Daraa and spread to other Syrian cities. The regime described the protesters as “terrorists” and began to suppress them with excessive force, resulting in the outbreak of war that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions.

Despite international calls to listen to the demands of the Syrian people, Bashar al-Assad refused to engage with the opposition and continued to classify them as “traitors” and “terrorists.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when he was prime minister, said in 2011: “We do not view the Syrian issue as a foreign issue or an external problem. The Syrian issue is our internal issue.”

Erdogan stressed Türkiye's political, security and humanitarian responsibilities in the war in Syria.

But in a speech in 2013, Assad stressed that he was ready for dialogue with those who had not “betrayed Syria,” rejecting any talks with what he described as “puppets of the West” and “terrorists.”

Source: Anadolu Agency