Syria's ruling party eyes reform within limits

Syria's ruling Baath party is set to authorise new political parties and free local elections during its national congress this week although hefty restrictions are likely to accompany the reforms, a member said Sunday. The first Baath party congress in five years comes as the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is under increasing pressure at home and abroad over allegations of supporting terror, missile tests over Turkey and a clampdown on dissidents.
Ayman Abdel Nur, a self-described "reformer" and Baath party member, told AFP the June 6-9 congress would propose free local elections in 2007 and a new law on political parties, allowing them to form as long as they are not "religion- or ethnic-based."
The two main opposition groups in Syria are Islamists and the minority Kurdish population but the Baath is the only legal movement.
Any new party would have to have branches in every region of Syria and collect a minimum of 10,000 to 15,000 member signatures, Nur said, a restriction that would likely prevent the formation of a Kurdish party because most of the country's 1.5 million Kurds live in the north-east.
Scores of Kurds and political dissidents were detained by Syrian security forces in recent weeks, including some opposition members of a political discussion forum who were arrested for reportedly spreading Islamist propaganda. Syria released them days later.
In April, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group banned since an armed uprising in the 1980s that marked the biggest challenge to the Damascus regime to date, renewed its call for free elections and an end to the state of emergency.
Syria's emergency law has been in effect since 1963 and gives sweeping powers to state security forces.
Nur said the congress is to adopt a motion proposing "either the continuation or elimination of emergency laws and the state security court."
However, he said, the congress will not amend Article 8 of the Syrian constitution, which says the Baath party is "leader of society and the state," an article that serves as the government's economic and political power base.
Nur said the congress will call for "greater freedom and economic exchange, opening markets and encouraging foreign investments," in a country that suffers from 22 percent unemployment.