Syria reveals new religiously diverse interim government
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Syria has revealed the line-up of its new interim government, which includes members of religious minorities and early veterans of the 2011 uprising against Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced 23 new ministers on Saturday, composing a government intended to rule for five years before a constitution is settled and elections are held.
Yarub Badr, a member of the Alawite religious community to which Assad belongs, was named transportation minister, while Druze Amgad Badr and Christian Hind Kabawat were announced to lead the agriculture ministry and social affairs and labour ministry, respectively.
“We are witnessing the birth of a new phase in our national process, and the formation of a new government today is a declaration of our common will to build a new state,” Sharaa said in a speech during the ceremony announcing the government.
"We will seek to rehabilitate industry, protect national products and create an encouraging environment for investment in all sectors. We will also strive to reform the monetary situation, strengthen the Syrian currency and prevent manipulation."
The announcement comes as rights groups and foreign governments have grown increasingly concerned over the treatment of religious minorities in Syria.
More than 1,000 people were killed in sectarian violence in eastern Syria in early March, with targeted killings of Alawites by armed gunmen.
Sharaa has attempted to reassure both Syrians and foreign observers that his government will not persecute minorities, but his past as the former leader of al-Qaeda's branch in Syria has provoked scepticism.
There has also been criticism over privatisation plans and lay-offs promised by the government.
Since taking over in December, Sharaa and his allies have pledged to roll back the state's involvement in the economy, pledging privatisation and "a competitive free-market economy" in an attempt to crack down on corruption and bolster the country's economic growth even as it still suffers from punishing sanctions.
Former Economy Minister Basil Abdul Hanan told Reuters in January that they would begin privatising the 107 state-run industrial companies, which he said were mostly loss-making, while keeping "strategic" energy and transport infrastructure in the public sector.
The newly appointed economy minister, Mohammad Nidal al-Shaar, who previously served in Assad's government between 2011 and 2012, said on Saturday that Syria was on the brink of a "new phase of building and recovery".
"We have a historic opportunity to rebuild our economy on more solid and sustainable foundations," he said, speaking at the government formation conference.
"Our rebuilding strategy focuses on strengthening production centres, supporting small and medium-sized projects, opening up the economy, encouraging creativity and innovation, empowering youth and women, supporting the victims and families of the martyrs, attracting local and international investments, developing infrastructure, rehabilitating vital facilities, and creating job opportunities to improve the quality of life."
The United Nations said in a recent report that 90 percent of Syrians are living in poverty, and half of the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed or rendered dysfunctional.
It added that 75 percent of the population now depends on some form of humanitarian aid, compared to only 5 percent in the first year of the conflict.
Swiss-Syrian academic Joseph Daher, author of Syria After the Uprising: The Political Economy of State Resilience, told Middle East Eye in early March that while corruption had riddled the public sector, privatisation and austerity measures - such as a planned end to bread subsidies - would push even more of the population into poverty.
"These austerity measures are accompanied by a willingness to liberalise and privatise the economy and of state assets - the [new Syrian] government supports totally the neoliberal paradigm," he told MEE.
