On March 13th, Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa signed the Constitutional Declaration, officially marking the start of a minimum five-year transitional period following the ousting of Bashar al-Assad. The declaration was introduced with promises of stability, legal reform and national reconstruction. Instead, it has become the legal foundation for Syria’s new era of authoritarianism – a monocracy in form and in practice.

Presented as a temporary framework, the declaration has concentrated sweeping powers in the presidency without accountability or oversight. Far from a step toward democratic restoration, it represents a regression: a return to centralised rule, with even fewer pretences of inclusion or power sharing than under Bashar al Assad. While it retains language around “freedom of opinion and expression,” and references Islamic jurisprudence as a foundational source of law, the substance of governance under President al-Sharaa is defined not by legal pluralism, but by consolidation and control.

The swift backlash from across Syria’s political spectrum illustrates the scale of disillusionment of this outcome of the much vaunted “national dialogue”. Groups that were initially cautiously hopeful of the new administration – including the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Druze leadership, and segments of the liberal opposition – have now publicly rejected the declaration. Their criticisms focus not only on the centralisation of power, but also on the exclusion of minority protections, the absence of a democratic roadmap, and the opaque manner in which the document was drafted.

The rejection has not been symbolic. Just days after the announcement, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the SDF’s political wing, accused the government of reproducing the very authoritarian structure it had overthrown, stating “Syria is a homeland for all its people. We will not accept the reconstruction of an authoritarian regime.” Meanwhile Alawite communities in the coastal region have protested the government’s inaction following a wave of attacks/massacres by HTS, raising fears of a return to sustained sectarian violence. With each passing week, the gulf between the government’s transitional narrative and the political reality on the ground grows wider.

A Presidency Without Limits

The most defining feature of the Constitutional Declaration is its unambiguous consolidation of executive power. It creates a presidential system with no effective checks or balances, granting President al-Sharaa total control over the political apparatus for the entirety of the transition period – and potentially well beyond.

Under Article 24 of the Declaration, the president is authorised to appoint one-third of the legislative body directly, while the remaining two thirds are selected by a transitional council whose members are themselves chosen by the executive. Also, the judiciary is effectively subordinated to the presidency. Judges are appointed and removed at the discretion of the executive, meaning the courts offer no institutional safeguard against abuse of power. Even more troubling, Article 41 allows for the declaration of a state of emergency without temporal limit, providing legal cover for the indefinite suspension of civil liberties and political activity.

The historical echoes are unmistakable. Hafez al-Assad ruled under emergency law from 1963 until his death in 2000, using it to jail opponents, silence dissent, and suppress pluralism under the guise of national security. In this context, the new declaration does not mark a rupture with the past – it is a refinement of it, written with fewer illusions and fewer constraints.

What differentiates President al-Sharaa’s model from that of President Assad is not its authoritarian structure but its lack of pretence. There are no promises of imminent elections, no gestures toward political inclusion, no transitional commissions. Unlike most post-conflict governments that make an effort to at least simulate democracy, this administration has skewed even the symbolic façade of democratic governance. It is a presidency without limits, and for now, without rivals.

The ‘Instability’ Excuse and Overlooked Alternatives

The justification most often relied upon for the suspension of democratic processes is that Syria remains too unstable to conduct elections. With over five million refugees, ongoing violence in the northwest and south, and deep economic crisis, officials argue that any effort to hold elections now would be logistically and politically impossible.

This argument is not new – and it has long served authoritarian governments as a convenient shield against accountability. But in the Syrian context, the excuse quickly falls apart under scrutiny. Other war-torn states have succeeded in conducting elections amid severe instability. Iraq held national elections in 2005, only two years after the U.S. invasion, despite facing huge political unrest and violence throughout the country. Afghanistan’s presidential elections in 2004 and 2009 occurred under the threat of Taliban attacks. Even Bosnia and Herzegovina held democratic elections in 1996, just one year after the end of a civil war that had devastated its institutions.

But is there really any alternative option for Syria? A transitional authority could have established a power-sharing mechanism, even if temporary, to ensure broader representation. Post-2003 Iraq built its transitional administration around a tripartite balance of Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish factions, however flawed in execution. After Gaddafi’s fall in Libya, multiple interim governments – though unstable – at least attempted to include rival factions in governing councils to stave off further fragmentation.

National Unity in Name, Not Practice

President al-Sharaa came to power speaking of national unity. He promised to govern beyond sectarian divides, to represent all Syrians equally, and to move beyond the polarisation of the Assad era. But those words have not been matched by policy. Instead, his actions have revealed a far narrower agenda – one shaped not by the principle of inclusion, but by the political calculations required to retain power.

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forms a core part of the military infrastructure underpinning President al-Sharaa’s government. HTS’s leadership remains ideologically opposed to democracy, routinely denounces pluralism as a Western concept, and has resisted efforts at power-sharing in past opposition-held areas. Yet rather than challenge their influence, the new government has largely bent to their demands.

Following the Alawite massacres in Latakia, President al-Sharaa issued a statement saying that he will punish culprits “even among those closest” to him, but took no concrete steps to investigate or prosecute the perpetrators – widely accepted to be HTS. The failure to respond meaningfully was seen by many as a political concession: President al-Sharaa is unwilling to confront his most hardline backers, even at the cost of alienating minority communities and undermining his own credibility.

That contrast between who he protects and who he appeases speaks volumes. The one clear exception came under pressure from abroad. Following a push from Ankara, President al-Sharaa held a meeting with a Turkman community representative to discuss his inclusion into the soon-to-be-formed government. This reveals an important truth: representation is not structurally impossible – it is simply not on President al-Sharaa’s agenda unless demanded by a powerful external actor. The result is a governing model that is both exclusionary and brittle—one that prioritises ideological loyalty from Islamist militants over the broader task of rebuilding a diverse and fragmented nation.

The Future of Syria

With elections deferred for at least five years, no mechanism for constitutional reform, and key political groups sidelined or excluded entirely, Syria’s political trajectory under President al-Sharaa appears increasingly predetermined. While his grip on power may seem secure for now, it rests on unstable foundations. If opposition forces regroup and align – especially under mounting public frustration – there remains the possibility of renewed internal resistance. But in the near term, real change is more likely to come from external pressure than from within. Regional actors with significant stakes in Syria’s future may eventually push for superficial adjustments – cosmetic elections, symbolic appointments – to attempt to stabilise the system and therefore the wider region. Unless something shifts drastically, this government will remain not because it is legitimate but because it has made itself impossible to dislodge.

Conclusion

When Ahmed al-Sharaa first assumed power, there was a brief window of hope – hope that Syria might finally move in a new direction. That window has now closed. The Constitutional Declaration, far from laying the groundwork for a democratic transition, has confirmed what many feared from the outset: that the system being built is not provisional, and not inclusive. It is a monocracy – unapologetic, unaccountable, and unconcerned with consensus.

What distinguishes this government from its predecessors and other governments around the world is its refusal to even disguise the concentration of power. Most authoritarian systems go to great lengths to stage elections, permit controlled opposition, or at least maintain the illusion of institutional balance. President al-Sharaa’s government does none of that. There are no gestures toward pluralism, no symbolic outreach, and no real transition plan. Power is no longer something to be negotiated or contested – it is simply claimed.

This absence of even the pretence of democracy makes Syria’s current political order not only repressive, but unprecedented in its clarity. In many ways, it is the first monocracy of the modern era; power concentrated entirely in one man’s hands, with no ideological mask or procedural distraction. The unsettling question is whether Syria is an outlier – or a warning. In a time when democratic institutions are under strain across the world and where strongmen increasingly rule by spectacle and force, Syria may not be the exception for long. If this model proves effective in securing and holding power, others may follow.

Syria’s Constitutional Declaration may not just define the future of its own republic. It may come to symbolise something larger: a new, post-democratic order – where the illusion of participation is no longer even necessary.