The United Arab Republic was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971. It was initially a political union between Egypt and Syria from 1958 until Syria seceded from the union following the 1961 Syrian coup d'état. Egypt continued to be known officially as the United Arab Republic until September 1971 when it was formally dissolved by Anwar Sadat.
The Arab Socialist Baʿth Party was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bīṭār, and associates of Zakī al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused Baʿathism, which is an ideology mixing Arab nationalist, pan-Arab, Arab socialist, and anti-imperialist interests. Baʿthism calls for unification of the Arab world into a single state. Its motto, "Unity, Liberty, Socialism", refers to Arab unity, and freedom from non-Arab control and interference.
The Iraqi Communist Party is a communist party and the oldest active party in Iraq. Since its foundation in 1934, it has dominated the left in Iraqi politics. It played a prominent role in shaping the political history of Iraq between its foundation and the 1970s. The Party was involved in many of the most important national uprisings and demonstrations of the 1940s and 1950s. It suffered heavily under the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein but remained an important element of the Iraqi opposition and was a vocal opponent of the United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War of 1991. It opposed the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 but since then has participated in the new political institutions. It received little support in the Iraqi general elections of 2005. The party gained some seats in each province in which the 2013 Iraqi governorate elections were held.
Salah Jadid was a Syrian general, a leader of the left-wing of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Syria, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970, when he was ousted by Hafez al-Assad's Corrective Movement.
Shukri al-Quwatli was the first president of post-independence Syria, in 1943. He began his career as a dissident working towards the independence and unity of the Ottoman Empire's Arab territories and was consequently imprisoned and tortured for his activism. When the Kingdom of Syria was established, Quwatli became a government official, though he was disillusioned with monarchism and co-founded the republican Independence Party. Quwatli was immediately sentenced to death by the French who took control over Syria in 1920. Afterward, he based himself in Cairo where he served as the chief ambassador of the Syrian-Palestinian Congress, cultivating particularly strong ties with Saudi Arabia. He used these connections to help finance the Great Syrian Revolt (1925–1927). In 1930, the French authorities pardoned Quwatli and thereafter, he returned to Syria, where he gradually became a principal leader of the National Bloc. He was elected president of Syria in 1943 and oversaw the country's independence three years later.
The Syrian Communist Party was a political party in Syria founded in 1944 as a division of the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party into the Syrian Communist Party and the Lebanese Communist Party.
Salah al-Din al-Bitar was a Syrian politician who co-founded the Arab Baʿth Party with Michel Aflaq in the early 1940s. As students in Paris in the early 1930s, the two formulated a doctrine that combined aspects of nationalism and socialism. Bitar later served as prime minister in several early Ba'athist governments in Syria but became alienated from the party as it grew more radical. In 1966 he fled the country, lived mostly in Europe and remained politically active until he was assassinated in Paris in 1980 by unidentified hitmen linked to the regime of Hafez al-Assad.
The Syrian Communist Party is an anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist communist party in Syria. The party emerged from a split in the Syrian Communist Party in 1986, as formed by the anti-Perestroika faction led by Khalid Bakdash. Khalid Bakdash died in 1995 and was succeeded as secretary of his party faction by his widow, Wisal Farha Bakdash. At the time of the 2000 Damascus Spring, the party was able to publish a newspaper called Sawt al-Shaab.
Khalid Bakdash was a Syrian politician who lead the Syrian Communist Party (SCP) from 1936 until his death in 1995. In 1954, Bakdash became the first member of a communist party to be elected to an Arab parliament. He has since been called the "dean of Arab communism".
The Syrian Democratic People's Party is a centre-left, democratic opposition party in Syria. It is a member of the Syrian opposition, a member of the National Democratic Rally, and a participant in the Damascus Declaration.
The National Democratic Rally or National Democratic Gathering is a banned opposition alliance in Syria, comprising five political parties of a secularist, pan-Arabist, Arab nationalist and socialist bent.
Izzat Husrieh was a renowned Syrian journalist, author, publisher and researcher. He contributed several books to the Arab library and his famous newspaper Al-Alam continued to form public opinion in Syria for two decades.
The 1963 Syrian coup d'état, referred to by the Syrian government as the 8 March Revolution, was the successful seizure of power in Syria by the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The planning and the unfolding conspiracy was inspired by the Iraqi Regional Branch's successful military coup.
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Lebanon Region, commonly known as the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Lebanon and officially the Lebanon Regional Branch, is a political party in Lebanon. It is the regional branch of the Damascus-based Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The leadership has been disputed since 2015; however, Fayez Shukr was the party leader from 2006 to 2015, when he succeeded Sayf al-Din Ghazi, who succeeded Assem Qanso.
Al-Baʻth is an Arabic language newspaper published by the Baʻth Party in Syria and other Arab countries and territories, including Lebanon and Palestine.
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region, officially the Syrian Regional Branch, is a neo-Ba'athist organisation founded on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar and followers of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party has ruled Syria continuously since the 1963 Syrian coup d'état which brought the Ba'athists to power. It was first the regional branch of the original Ba'ath Party (1947–1966) before it changed its allegiance to the Syrian-dominated Ba'ath movement (1966–present) following the 1966 split within the original Ba'ath Party. Since their ascent to power in 1963, neo-Ba'athist officers proceeded by stamping out the traditional civilian elites to construct a military dictatorship operating in totalitarian lines; wherein all state agencies, party organisations, public institutions, civil entities, media and health infrastructure are tightly dominated by the army establishment and the Mukhabarat.
The Arab Liberation Movement was a Syrian political party founded on 25 August 1952 by the President of Syria Adib Shishakli, during his government was the only legal party in Syria until 1954.
Qadri Jamil is a Syrian politician, media editor and economist. He is one of the top leaders of the People's Will Party and the Popular Front for Change and Liberation, and a former member of the Syrian government, having been dismissed from the post of deputy prime minister for economic affairs; minister of internal trade and consumer Protection on 29 October 2013. During a visit to Russia on 21 August 2012 Jamil said that President Bashar Assad's resignation might be considered if the opposition agreed to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the Syrian revolution.
Parliamentary elections were scheduled to be held in Syria on 13 April 2020 to elect members of the People's Council of Syria. However, on 14 March they were postponed to 20 May due to the coronavirus pandemic. On 7 May it was decided to postpone the elections until 19 July. Syria's parliamentary elections occur every four years, with the last held in 2016.
