The UN announced Monday, September 23, the creation of a Constitutional Committee for Syria, provided for by Security Council Resolution 2254 calling for a ceasefire and a political transition in Syria, and composed of representatives of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition tolerated by Damascus.

This announcement was hailed by Washington and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as a first step towards a political settlement of a conflict that has claimed more than 370,000 lives since 2011, as well as millions of refugees and refugees. displaced. Tuesday, before the General Assembly of the UN, French President Emmanuel Macron has even described it as "breakthrough".

This committee, which includes 150 people, will be working soon in Geneva. The power has chosen 50 of its members, as much as the opposition (constituted in particular by the Syrian Negotiations Committee which represents the main opposition groups), and finally the last 50 people were selected by the UN which included in its list of representatives of civil society. In charge of the drafting of the constitution for the post-war period in Syria, this committee is to pave the way for elections in the country, while the last presidential election, which dates back to 2014, had re-elected President Bashar al-Assad with a very large majority. The next presidential election is to be held in 2021.

At the end of 2015, with the unanimous adoption of resolution 2254, the Security Council had indicated that a political process led by the Syrians and facilitated by the UN should set up, "within six months" , "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance", and set a timetable and modalities for a new constitution. Under it, "free and fair" elections should be held "within 18 months" under UN supervision.

The idea of ​​this committee had been formally approved in January 2018 at the instigation of Russia, allied with President Bashar al-Assad. But the latter, in a position of strength after regaining control of most of Syrian territory, has been dragging its feet, delaying its formation and its establishment. Discussions between the United Nations, the opposition and Damascus have notably stumbled over the operating procedures of this body and its hierarchy before arriving at the agreement announced Monday.

In recent months, the UN envoy, Geir Pedersen, and the Syrian regime have scrapped some names on the UN list including representatives of civil society. This summer, according to diplomats, the blockage only lasted on one name.

Fear of new blockages

The head of Syrian diplomacy, Walid Mouallem, reiterated "Syria's commitment to (...) the Syrian-Syrian dialogue in order to reach a political solution (...) far from any foreign intervention". However, diplomats are already worried that the future establishment of the committee, which excludes the Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria, will take months yet, while the Syrian army continues its offensive on the province of 'Idleb (north-west), last rebel stronghold that escapes his control.

For Westerners, the Committee's objective must be to organize new inclusive elections and integrate the millions of refugees, often hostile to the Syrian regime, who fled the country and the war. But Bashar Al-Assad is likely to oppose any constitutional revision that goes beyond a facade grooming and a fortiori to any enlargement of the electoral body that is unfavorable.

"He is in a position of strength, the Russians solicit him to make gestures (as on the Constitutional Committee), but even that he resisted them for months," said AFP the former ambassador of France in Syria Michel Duclos, Special Adviser at the Montaigne Institute in Paris.

"He keeps the possibility of blocking the rest of the procedure.In the meantime, there will have been elections, he will have elected his pawns, he himself will be re-elected in 2021 if nothing changes," he continues.

For Julien Barnes-Dacey, expert at the Europan Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), "enormous questions" arise concerning this Committee, while Europe and the United States have conditioned all aid for the reconstruction of Syria real progress towards a political solution.

"The Syrian government will undoubtedly continue to obstruct this process, so do not expect a fair political settlement or substantial reforms from it," he told AFP. "But it is also the only way, certainly narrow, to try any form of political process" and this is a rare "opening", he concludes.

With AFP