Syria goes to the polls amidst deep economic and social crisis

The country is economically exhausted and devastated after nine years of civil war

Rawan al-Aziz is six years old and lives in a refugee camp in Atmeh, in northern Syria. She says she still remembers her home, south of Idlib. “A house for me is a place where my friends and family are. I brought my toys with me but it’s not nice here at all,” she told Reuters. Rawan is one of the girls who posed for Khalil Ashwi’s photo essay for Reuters. On the ninth anniversary of the start of the civil war in Syria, Ashwi has portrayed one infant for every year the war has dragged on.

Although many Syrians have not yet managed to return home, parliamentary elections are being held this Sunday, two months later than planned, with the country still in the throes of a deep political and economic crisis and an unfinished armed conflict. Syrian President Bashar al-Asad decided at the beginning of May to postpone elections for a second time as a preventive measure against the coronavirus. They were to have been held on April 13, when no case of COVID-19 had yet been detected, but were subsequently postponed again until May 20, when 45 infections and three deaths were recorded in the Arab country.

The last time the Syrians expressed their will at the polls was in April 2016. On this occasion they could only be held in those areas under government control. The inhabitants of the northern provinces of Al Raqa and Idlib, at that time controlled by the jihadi group Islamic State and the former Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, were not able to participate in the elections.

This time the situation is different. The last rebels against Al-Asad are entrenched in a stronghold in the province of Idlib while a large area of northwest Syria the Kurds have established an autonomous administration that Damascus does not recognize. The Government is trying to break down this resistance in order to unify the country and put an end to the fighting.

In the 2016 elections, 3,450 candidates ran, but President Al-Assad’s Ba’ath party took almost all the seats. Although political plurality is recognized in current 2012 constitution, the vast majority of the Syrian opposition is in exile since 2011.

This Saturday will mark two decades since Bachar Al-Assad made his first speech as president. It was not his destiny, as the father of the current president had appointed his first-born son, Basel, to succeed him as president. But his death in 1994, when his Mercedes crashed into the wall while driving at high speed and without a seat belt, left the fate of Syria in the hands of his younger brother.

In July 2000, young Bachar Al-Assad gave his first speech. The Constitution had to be changed to bring him to power at the age of 34. He has not left it since then. His aim was to make Syria a slightly more European and western country with a slight economic opening, while keeping political and military control in the same hands. The reforms brought tourism and the internet, bureaucracy was simplified and the country was modernised. In spite of this, the political system has not been reformed during this time and Al-Assad has had to face one of the worst warlike conflicts in the Middle East at the beginning of the century. The leader has emerged as the only option in the face of chaos for Syria and has dominated the country with an iron fist in the last 20 years, despite the small spaces left to the opposition.

Nine years after the outbreak of the Civil War, which has left nearly half a million people dead, the country is economically exhausted and devastated by the conflict. The Syrian pound has collapsed and lost much of its value. The Syrians are accumulating other currencies, such as the Turkish lira or euros, to meet their expenses.

In early July, 3,000 Syrian pounds were exchanged for one dollar. A month ago, every dollar was worth 1,000 pounds. This is an astronomical increase in the exchange rate, considering that prior to the war, 47 pounds were equivalent to one dollar. The loss of value of the local currency has been so brutal that, with the average world wage in Syria, some 50 000 pounds, you can only buy a watermelon or a bag of lemons. According to the latest statistics, poverty affects 85% of the Syrian population.

Many shops, such as gas stations and bakeries, have also closed with the collapse of the currency. “We are seeing something that has never happened before. People are more tired than ever, and this crisis is making many people who had not dared to criticize Al-Assad before now begin to do so,” explained Danni Makki, an expert at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in statements to El Periódico de Catalunya. “Many will try to escape from the country, we are worried that a second wave of migration towards Europe may occur”, he warns.

The collapse of the pound has opened a new path for Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to intervene in Syria with the injection of the Turkish lira, which has become the currency in circulation. Citizens use it for payment and have discarded the pound, which is only used to exchange it in banks for another euro, dollar or lira.

Citizens outside these areas of influence are forced to use the pound, as the use of other currencies is prohibited. The crisis is therefore affecting, in particular, the areas controlled by the Damascus Government. The delicate economic outlook is also a threat to President Al-Assad, who is weaker than ever.

The president is facing serious economic problems. The most serious of all is the banking crisis in Lebanon, as many Syrian merchants’ money is in these deposits and if a bank freeze was to be set up they would not be able to get their money back. Closures due to the coronavirus, corruption, the Assad family disputes or the new US sanctions are yet another blow to the weakened Syrian economy. Experts warn that if no recovery occurs by the end of the year or early 2021, if things do not change, there could be a famine.

The new round of U.S. sanctions against Al-Assad, under the name of the Caesar Act, is intended to punish Syrian and foreign individuals and institutions that do any kind of business with Damascus and isolate Al-Assad. Sanctions are expected to make the delicate Syrian economy even worse.

Russia, one of Al-Assad’s main allies, has requested that economic sanctions imposed on Damascus by the United States and Europe should be lifted. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has said that sanctions should not prevent the delivery of essential equipment and supplies to areas in greatest need during the pandemic and thus prevent harm to the civilian population.

Agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross have already warned that nine million people do not have enough food on a daily basis. The UN estimates that 83% of Syrians live below the poverty line, on less than $100 a month. The citizens have not remained silent in the face of this crisis and for the last few weeks there have been protests throughout the country, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London, although with a large number of collaborators on the ground. The official agency has reported rallies in favour of Al-Assad and against US sanctions, but has not reported demonstrations against the executive.

The disastrous economic situation has also been transferred to politics. In the midst of the galloping economic crisis devastating the country, Al-Assad decided to dismiss by surprise and just one month before the elections the Prime Minister, Imad Khamis, in office since 2016 and was replaced by Hussein Arnous, Minister of Water Resources since 2018. The new Prime Minister, 67, born in Idlib, also remains Minister of Water Resources. Arnous has also been Minister of Public Works and Housing since 2013, a period in which his name appeared on the list of those sanctioned by the European Union and the United States.

The upsurge in Daesh attacks in Syria is also worrying. Last week, in less than 48 hours, several ambushes by this terrorist group took place against members of the Syrian regular army, resulting in more than 50 deaths, 20 soldiers and 31 jihadists, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory. The terrorist group’s new strategy to regain ground is to practice ambushes and guerrilla techniques. The Daesh has come to expand its radius of action, now very centred on Idlib, towards the west to the cities of Homs, Aleppo and Raqqa, as the Observatory has been able to document.

The group is taking advantage of the scenario of political, economic and social instability to regain its strength. In the last bastion of the rebel forces, the jihadist group Tahrir al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), maintain their positions, supported by the Turkish military forces. Hostilities in this region led Ankara and Moscow to sign a document specifying the terms of the cessation of hostilities.  Under this agreement, the Russian and Turkish armed forces began joint patrols along the motorway connecting Aleppo to Damascus or the road linking Aleppo to Laatheque.

The violence in Idlib adds to the lack of control of the health crisis. The new infections raise the number of confirmed cases to three in the area, where health care facilities have been devastated by years of civil war, and where testing has been limited due to scarce resources.

Observers fear the virus could spread easily in Idlib province, a concern compounded as Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, moved at the UN Security Council to reduce cross-border aid from Turkey. Aid groups and UN agencies say such a reduction would hamper aid delivery of live-saving assistance amid a global pandemic. Doctors following up on the cases say testing and contact tracing is underway to attempt to isolate and prevent the spread of the virus. The two new cases have been in contact with the area’s first confirmed case — a doctor who had moved between different hospitals and towns.

“The anticipation is a catastrophic outcome if there is no proper containment of the initial cases or proper isolation,” said Naser AlMuhawish, of the Early Warning and Alert Response Network to Arab News. “Don’t forget we are in a conflict zone. So doctors are already scarce and need to move between more than one place.”

The first case was reported Thursday and the hospital where the doctor works has since suspended its operations and quarantined patients and support staff to carry out testing. Meanwhile, hospitals in northwest Syria announced Friday they would be suspending non-emergency procedures and outpatient services for at least one week. Schools were to shut down until further notice. Before the confirmed cases, there had been only about 2,000 people tested for the virus.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is trying to renew the agency’s mandate to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria. Russia is trying to close at least one border crossing between the rebel-controlled enclave and Turkey, arguing that aid must be delivered from inside Syria across the conflict lines.

But the U.N. and humanitarian groups say that aid for nearly three million people in need in the northwest cannot be delivered by that route. The division in the Security Council has not been able to agree to the extension of humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey, as the current UN mandate has ended.

Kevin Kennedy, the United Nations regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syrian conflict, told the Associated Press that leaving a single crossing open would make aid delivery slower, more expensive and more dangerous in territory controlled by different armed groups.

“We have taken many steps, provided many pieces of equipment, but in an overcrowded area with 2.7 million displaced people, social disengagement is difficult,” Kennedy said. “The health infrastructure is weak, many (hospitals) have been bombed or destroyed, health officials have left the country or have been killed in the fighting. So the situation is ripe for more trouble if Covid-19 spreads“.