Syria changes constitution to further legalize and cement Bashar’s presidency

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was promoted to a “team” military rank and is now the commander in chief of the Syrian military and the armed forces, according to a report published Tuesday.

This promotion allowed Bashar al-Assad to skip four military ranks, and to jump from one eagle and two stars placed on his shoulder to a “team” rank, in which he is eligible for one eagle, two crossed swords and three stars.

The ranking is given only to the president of the republic, who is also the chief commander of the army and the armed forces.

But what is so bizarre is that the defected and former vice president Abdalhalim Khadam was the one who allegedly issued the constitutional changes.

“Khadam issues a constitutional amendment and two legislative decrees,” was the headline in a Tuesday issue of the pro-Syrian regime newspaper al-Thawora (The Revolution).

Khadam, who was a long-time loyalist to Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, was the interim president of Syria for approximately a month in 2000 and is considered to be a traitor by the Syrian regime.

In an interview on Israel’s channel 2 TV, Khaddam acknowledged that he received money and help from the U.S. and the EU to overthrow the Syrian regime.

He also said that former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, to whom Khaddam was considered close, “received many threats” from al-Assad.

Age

The newspaper said that the newly amended 83 article stipulates that a president must be a Syrian Arab and can enjoy civil and political rights at the age of 34.

Assad became Syria’s new president at the age of 35, with an alleged massive popular support amounting to 97.2 percent of the votes, in 2000.

At the time, the parliament swiftly voted to lower the minimum age for candidates from 40 to 34, but Tuesday’s decree made the change official.

“This edition of the newspaper will forever stay in the memory of the Syrian people,” wrote an anti-Syrian regime newspaper, Zaman al-Wasil, which published scanned excerpts from the newspaper supplied by an activist.

“[The changes] represent a provocation against the Syrian peoples’ memory and during an imminent transfer of power period,” the newspaper added.