Syrians are still surprisingly upbeat
Presenting his new government on March 29th, Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, called it “a declaration of our shared will to build a new state”. It certainly looked that way. The government Mr Sharaa brought with him to Damascus in December after he toppled Bashar al-Assad was an all-male group of Sunni Islamists and former jihadists. In the new one, loyalists from his civil-war days still hold the top jobs. But technocrats have replaced obscurantists and there is a minister from each of Syria’s minorities: an Alawite (the sect to which Mr Assad belongs), a Christian, a Druze and a Kurd. The sole woman minister does not wear the veil.
The coming months will show whether Mr Sharaa’s plan for the country really is as pluralist as the cabinet make-up suggests. Syria’s non-Sunni and non-Arab minorities, in particular, remain concerned about his jihadist past and his tendency to centralise power. Last month hundreds, perhaps more, were killed in sectarian violence on the coast. The Kurds ruling Syria’s north-east do not recognise the new government. Yet the results of a rare public-opinion poll conducted on behalf of The Economist in March suggest that there is still widespread optimism about Mr Sharaa’s ability to rebuild Syria.
The survey, which polled 1,500 Syrians from across the country’s provinces and sectarian groups, found that 81% approve of Mr Sharaa’s rule (see chart 1). Only 22% say that his past as an al-Qaeda leader should disqualify him from leadership. Large numbers say they feel his new order is safer, freer and less sectarian than Mr Assad’s regime. Some 70% are optimistic about the overall direction of the country. The happiest province is Idlib, Mr Sharaa’s erstwhile fief, where 99 of the 100 respondents express optimism. Besides Damascus, the capital, Tartus, a religiously mixed province where jihadists killed large numbers of Alawites last month, is the saddest. Even there, 49% said they were optimistic, whereas 23% expressed pessimism.
That the poll could be conducted at all is a good sign in a region where Arab autocrats typically ban independent opinion surveys. Still, conditions were not ideal. Pollsters had to operate in public spaces. Given the difficulty of using methods like random-digit dialling to obtain a representative sample of Syrians, they approached people until they had obtained a pre-specified number of responses from men and women in both rural and urban parts of each of the country’s geographic regions. Though the survey did not set sampling targets for ethnicity or religion, answers cleave along religious and ethnic lines in ways that support the poll’s credibility.
To counteract some of the biases in the data, The Economist has re-weighted the sample by geographic region, age group and identification as a Kurd or Alawite, according to the best available breakdowns of these groups’ proportions in the population. The adjustments have only a modest effect on the results. It is harder to account for the lurking fear respondents may have of expressing political opinions after decades of repressive dictatorship. “In Syria, we have a traditional practice of deferring to authority,” says Mohammed Shikh Aiyob, the director of Middle East Consulting Solutions, which conducted the poll.
That said, respondents do express plenty of criticism of Mr Sharaa, especially on the economy. Almost 60% of respondents think economic conditions have either not improved or worsened under him. His decisions to reassess tariffs on imports and allow the unfettered exchange of the dollar generate support. But most government salaries have not been paid since he assumed power. Cash is in short supply.
Most Syrians also strongly oppose Mr Sharaa’s policy of integrating foreign fighters into his new army, with 60% of respondents saying they should instead be deported. There is little consensus on how to prosecute crimes committed under the former regime. “The interim administration should consider this optimism as borrowed, not bought,” says Mr Aiyob. “Preventing it from fading demands meaningful progress on the economy, national dialogue and transitional justice.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly in a country emerging from decades of minority despotism, the poll reveals a deep gulf between the Sunni majority and Syria’s minorities, especially the Alawites, many of whom were loyal to Mr Assad (see chart 2). Only 6% of Sunnis are pessimistic, in contrast with 40% of Alawites. Kurdish, Druze and Christian communities feel poorer, less free and less safe than Sunni Arabs.
One striking cleavage is over the legal system, an important indicator of the country’s future direction. More than 90% of Sunnis favour either the full or partial restoration of Islamic law, which last prevailed in Syria more than a century ago. Only 7% want a fully secular legal system. Among Kurds, Alawites, Druze and Christians the results are reversed. Some 86% of Druze and Christians and 73% of Kurds want a secular legal system. Support for full Islamic law is also lower among women, with 29% in favour, than men, at 40%. More than three-quarters of respondents favour equal rights for women.
Despite regional differences on other foreign-policy issues, especially on future allies, Syrians broadly agree on how to deal with Israel. Since Mr Assad’s fall, Israel has seized hundreds of square kilometres of Syrian territory, beyond the land it already occupies in the Golan Heights, and destroyed Syria’s military arsenal. Yet Syrians have no appetite for a fight. Two-thirds favour diplomatic tools to counter Israel. Only 10% favour armed struggle.
All told, despite sectarian divisions, Syrians are surprisingly upbeat. Except for Alawites, three-quarters of whom want elections within a year, most are in no hurry to replace Mr Sharaa. Syrians are giving their new leader a chance. It is up to him to use it wisely. ■