Vladimir Putin recently announced his plans for reforms that would reduce the powers of his successor, by watering down the presidency and strengthening parliament. This will involve giving the lower house of parliament (Duma) powers to appoint the prime minister and the cabinet.

This will be different from the current arrangement where the prime minister is appointed by the president before being approved by the parliament. Other proposed changes were: limiting the supremacy of international law, amending the rules on the presidential term and strengthening laws that prohibit presidential candidates who have held citizenship or foreign residency permits.

Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev who resigned with his cabinet after Putin’s announcement said: “These changes, when they are adopted, will introduce substantial changes not only to an entire range of articles of the constitution, but also to the entire balance of power, the power of the executive, the power of the legislature, the power of judiciary”.

He said he was resigning together with his ministers to allow Putin to make important decisions. He had served as President several years back before switching roles with Putin, but what has left many people talking is what Putin is trying to achieve with his reforms.

Reports of plans to introduce constitutional reforms that would enable Putin to be able to cling on to power had first emerged mid last year when Bloomberg claimed that his aides and advisors were working on ways to allow him to prolong his rule. It claimed that among the changes that were being considered were electoral reforms that were to give the Kremlin control over parliament thus enabling Putin to extend his rule.

Shortly after, the speaker of Russia’s parliament Mr, Vyacheslav Volodin published an article titled ‘Living Constitution of Development’, in which he proposed changes to the Russian constitution. Among his proposals was for the parliament to be given more powers to appoint cabinet ministers and prime ministers in what he termed as “the participation of the State Duma (parliament) in the formation of the Government of the Russian Federation.”

He justified his proposals by saying, “A greater balance of power does not boil down to the task of providing checks and balances. The main thing that it should is a higher quality of interaction and coordination of the work of the state mechanism. The quality of a democratic government, which in turn is just necessary for the fullest possible realization of rights and constitutional foundations.”

Bloomberg cited two people close to the Kremlin and one legislator claimed, “Keeping a stronghold on parliament would widen Putin’s room for manoeuvrability. It could potentially allow the 66-year-old Russian president to switch roles, keeping the reign of power as head of the ruling party and prime minister with expanded constitutional authority at the expense of the presidency.”

But this appears not to be the case. Putin is not interested in extending his rule or switching roles with Medvedev to return as a powerful prime minister. He aims to leave the government at the end of his term but continue wielding power behind the scene. Why?

Professor Daniel Treisman of the University of California recently said, “For most autocratic leaders, it has been quite dangerous to leave power. Things have to be going extremely well, and the system has to be stable, to get out without any repercussion.”

Putin has a legacy, allies and interests which he will he need to protect even after he leaves the government. They are so entrenched in the Russian political system that the absence of his patronage would result in a serious disruption. Apart from that, remaining powerful could also help him avoid international legal actions that could come calling after he leaves power. Although at home, he will still enjoy immunity from prosecution under a law passed in 2001.

One state vehicle through which Putin will most probably use to pull the strings in the government after his retirement, is the State Council which he currently chairs. According to the Kremlin, “the State Council is an advisory body that assists the President in guaranteeing coordinated functioning and interaction of the various state bodies of powers.”

The composition of the council leaves no doubt about its influence. Among its members are the “Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Speaker of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoys to the federal districts, heads of the highest executive agencies of state power in Russia’s federal constituent entities, and the heads of the political parties in the State Duma.”

Although the work of the council has been advisory, in the latest constitutional proposals Putin wants to enshrine it formally in the constitution to give it clear and substantive powers. Leading such a powerful body would place him over his successor as a supreme leader.

One doesn’t have to be serving in the government to be in the council. As the Kremlin states on its website, “State council can be extended to individuals holding senior positions” but also people “who have extensive experience of public service”. So there is nothing to prevent Putin from serving in the council after his retirement.

A deal between Medvedev and Putin in the latest developments is something nobody can deny. The two have enjoyed close working relationship apart from being close political allies, and whatever they have under their sleeves in these new manoeuvres is still being unravelled.

L'articolo The Cabinet and the Constitution: What is Vladimir Putin up to? proviene da InsideOver.

Finding a news story in the international media about the Alternative for Germany (AfD) where the terms “far-right” or “extreme right-wing” are not applied to the party is a difficult task. Media outlets such as the BBC, CNN, ABC and CBC use these epithets and the same pattern can be found amongst newspapers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Guardian, to name but a few. Also, Deutsche Welle, Germany’s state-owned international broadcaster, does so as well of course. Virtually every article about the AfD on its website describes it as “far-right” or “anti-immigrant”. The Left Party, the successor of the SED, the former East German Communist Party (1946-89), gets a free pass and is generally referred to simply by its name. Environmentalist groups or pro-open borders NGOs being described as “extreme” or “radical” by such news organisations would be a novelty indeed.

Violence and intimidation

AfD stands accused of stirring up hatred but, on closer inspection, the party is very often the victim of hatred and indeed violence itself. According to information acquired by Bundestag member Martin Hess from the German Federal Government and reported in Die Junge Freiheit, AfD was the main victim of political violence and intimidation in Germany in the third quarter of 2019. The period saw 52 attacks against the offices or facilities of political parties and 26 of these were carried out against AfD; of the 278 attacks on representatives and members of political parties 127 of them were carried out against AfD members, with 113 of them being classified as having an extreme left-wing political motivation; and of the 905 election posters damaged or destroyed 406 belonged to AfD. Behind the statistics lie some unsettling events: politicians attacked on the street, cars being smashed up and set on fire, threats, offices ransacked and a house daubed with paint and graffiti describing the owner as a “Nazi Pig”.

Parliamentary personae non-gratae

According to AfD Parliamentarian René Springer in an interview with the Swiss weekly newspaper Die Weltwoche in April 2019, AfD members are shunned in the Bundestag. When Parliamentary joint leader Alice Weidel sat down to eat in the Bundestag restaurant other parliamentarians at the adjacent table stood up and walked out whilst the Left Party and SPD members simply refuse to speak to their AfD counterparts. Social ostracism is accompanied by institutional mischief. According to parliamentary rules of procedure, each parliamentary group is entitled to a seat on the Praesidium of the Bundestag but has to gain a majority of votes for its candidate.

Since October 2017 four AfD candidates have been rejected by the members of the other parliamentary groups in an unprecedented campaign to block a party that gained almost 13% of the vote in the 2017 general election and is now represented in all 16 of Germany’s regional Parliaments.

A threat to the constitutional order?

The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has intervened in respect of the AfD question. It announced in January 2019 that the AfD would be treated as a “Prüffall” (“test case”), meaning that there were indications of extremism within its membership. Junge Alternative (Young Alternative), the party’s youth organisation and der Flügel (the Wing), a national-conservative group led by the controversial leader of the Thuringian party, Björn Höcke, would, however, be treated as “Verdachtsfälle”, a more serious measure meaning that intelligence can be used to gather information about the two groups.

The Administrative Court of Cologne did however subsequently hold that the BfV must not use the term “Prüffall” in public as it would unfairly stigmatise AfD. The BfV has itself been at the centre of controversy in recent years. The former head of the agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, publicly called into question media claims, backed by Merkel, that Germans had “hunted down” foreigners during the Chemnitz disturbances of 2018. Maaßen was subsequently moved to a different position and was eventually placed in early retirement after a controversial farewell speech.

Political programme

Does the AfD deserve such vitriol? A sober and rational analysis of the party’s Political Programme, however, indicates a patriotic centre-right party seeking to protect German state sovereignty, promote direct democracy on the model of Switzerland, bolster federalism, streamline the state and remove party political influence in the arts and culture.

The Programme does call, inter alia, for the defence of the Judeo-Christian and humanist culture of the West, measures to reverse Germany’s demographic decline, the safeguarding of the traditional family, the prohibition of gender and ethnic quotas, stricter controls on mosques and Imams, and also opposes government energy policy and some of the claims of the environmentalist movement. What the AfD is trying to do is shift the Overton Window by raising the legitimate and reasonable concerns of sections of the population that want a wider choice of political options than has been on offer from the established political parties in recent years. Such proposals are not “fascist”, “Nazi” or totalitarian. The Programme makes no mention of the Führer principle, the abolition of elections and political parties, the destruction of trade unions, the gagging of the press, the need for Lebensraum in the East or Aryan racial supremacy. True, there have been some unsavoury comments by individuals. One member who described Claus von Stauffenberg, the army officer who attempted to assassinate Hitler in July 1944, as a “coward” and a “traitor” was thrown out of the party. The party leadership is also seeking to expel another member over alleged antisemitism.

Alexander Gauland

The Saxon born journalist and historian, Alexander Gauland, had been a lifelong member of the CDU until in 2012 he and other conservative-minded members known as the Berlin Circle were told they had no future in the upper echelons of the party. This led them to set up the AfD in 2013. The CDU/CSU’s drift to the left opened up a gap on the right and they have filled it. In his book, Anleitung zum Konservativsein (Guide to Being Conservative) written some ten years earlier, Gauland bemoaned this leftwards shift. He argued that concepts such as Heimat (homeland), Leitkultur (leading or guiding culture) family, tradition and art had been discarded by the party. He lauded the English conservative thinker, Edmund Burke, as his model: a man of “moderation” and the “middle ground” who favoured organic and moderate reform to conserve what is worth conserving.

Gauland has himself admitted that AfD’s rise can in part be ascribed to the failings of the established parties, above all their unwillingness to address issues falling outside the narrow corridor of respectable opinion. AfD has on the other hand always been prepared to discuss openly and critically the difficulties of the Euro, the bailout of Greece, Merkel’s open-door migrant policy, migrant crime, Islam, multiculturalism, environmentalist hysteria and the threats to German identity posed by globalisation and globalism. The party brings a refreshing candour to political debate. This is surely the key to its rise.

The Brunswick party conference

Gauland has called AfD a “gäriger Haufen” (a group or a crowd in the process of fermentation) and, as we have seen, the party is not, as some would have us believe, a bunch of football hooligans brandishing the black, white and red flag of imperial Germany. At the federal party conference held in Brunswick in November 2019 co-chair Jörg Meuthen stated in his keynote speech that the party must now become “capable and willing to govern” and must be a “patriotic respectable middle-class party”. So far, of course, voices within the CDU/CSU calling for coalitions with AfD have been isolated but as the SPD swings to the left and the CDU/CSU runs adrift these voices may well begin to multiply.

L'articolo Is the Demonisation of Alternative for Germany (AfD) Justified? proviene da InsideOver.

Female politicians in Kenya are playing servile to their male counterparts by avoiding to run for the country’s top seat as they are presently rooting for putative candidates, who exclusively happen to be male, eroding a momentum of empowerment for women that began 30 years ago.

With elections scheduled for 2022, when current President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to exit after serving a maximum constitutionally mandated two-five year terms, the emerging political realignment points to an all-male contest for the top seat, for now.

Martha Karua, 62, who contested for the presidential sweepstakes in 2013, emerged sixth in a field of eight candidates, after attracting 0.36% of the popular vote understandably throwing shade at the stance taken by the local women politicos.

As the current leader of the National Rainbow Coalition-Kenya (NARC-K) party which has three out of 349 members in parliament, Karua thinks the current crop of women politicians are stiffing Kenya’s women folks.

“The most unfortunate thing happening now in the Kenyan political space is that women parliamentarians are agreeing to become praise choirs for male politicians angling to succeed the current president,” says Karua, one of the few female politicians with an illustrious career that has also seen her work as the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Justice.

Beginning early this year, two disparate groups drawing in female politicians from across the country were unveiled, all beholden to two political camps. One coalesces around Deputy President William Ruto, going by the moniker name of Inua Mama – Kiswahili term meaning ‘uplift the livelihood of women’ – while the other calls itself ‘Team Embrace’ and is batting for a former Prime Minister and the country’s de facto leader of the opposition, Raila Odinga.

Despite the presidential elections being three years away from taking place, the country is oddly in a campaign mood.

This is after President Kenyatta and Odinga, 74, formerly bitter foes in the most recent elections held in October 2017, that almost pushed East Africa’s biggest economy down the precipice, publicly shook hands on March 2018. This historical gesture signalled a rapprochement between bitter political protagonists but it left the Deputy President’s political base feeling jittery.

“Everything was going well for him, and it was just a matter of counting the years. His chances at a shot at the top job were 100 per cent, now it has been reduced to 50-50,” says Dr Herman Manyora a political science lecturer at the University of Nairobi, the premier public institution of higher learning, referring to the Deputy President.

When Kenyatta ran for the presidency in 2013, he tapped Ruto as his running mate, publicly stating he would support his deputy in elections scheduled for 2022 after serving two terms. But after the 2017 elections, the president has been sending mixed signals.

“On his own Odinga is not a threat to Ruto. But backed by Kenyatta, who has the real power to thwart his chances, Ruto has a real reason to worry. Kenyatta and Odinga have become joined at the hip after the handshake, and together, they are a real threat, “says Dr.Manyora.

Currently, out of the 349 seats in parliament, only 76 members are female representing one-fifth of the total number.

According to Kenya’s 2010 constitution, women must have at least a third of seats in parliament and a third of appointed positions.

The constitution states that no more than two-thirds of an elected or appointed body can be of one gender, but does not set out a mechanism for attaining that goal.

Court rulings since 2012 have directed parliament to pass legislation to enforce the gender rule or risk dissolution – but previous attempts have failed, largely due to quorum hitches.

There are 76 female MPs in the current parliament, equivalent to just over a fifth of the 349 seats.

This underlines gender inequality in Kenya’s political system compared to neighbouring states.

Rwanda leads with 61%, followed by Tanzania at 36%, Burundi at 36%, Uganda and 34% and South Sudan at 28.5%.  Except Rwanda, none of these countries have attained the African Union standard of 50/50 representation of women in all leadership positions including political leadership.

In the absences of affirmative action, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf would not have become the first woman in Africa to become president when in 2016 she ascended to the top seat in the West African state of Sierra Leone. Journalist Monique Ohsan Bellepeau, later on, pulled off a similar stunt in the southeastern state of Mauritius in 2012. While in the South African republic of Malawi, Joyce Hilda Banda became president in 2012.

In Uganda, two women have vied for president; first was Miria Obote, wife of former president Milton Obote, who ran in the 2006 election, but only managed to garner 0.08% of the vote.

In elections held in 2011, Beti Kamya gave it a go, but only managed 0.06% of the vote.

In Rwanda, two women have tried to vie for the presidency including Alvera Mukabaramba, who made a stab in 2003 but withdrew from the race on the eve of the election, handing President Paul Kagame a landslide victory. She tried again in 2010, but only got 0.04% of the vote

This is a telling indication that despite the patriarchal nature of African politics, woman are increasingly daring to run for the top seat.

When in 1997, a woman sensationally ran for presidency for the first time in Kenya’s 34-year-old history since gaining independence from British rule in 1963, this nation of 47 million people was under the heel of an intransigent regime that brooked no challenges to its hold on power.

And understandably the autocratic President Daniel Arap Moi, pulled out all the stops, cruising to victory with 40.4 % of the vote in elections held in that year.

Two women were on the presidential ballot that year. They included Charity Ngilu, 67, now one among five female governors in a landscape with 47 governors and Prof. Wangari Maathai who succumbed to cancer in September 2011 seven years after winning the Nobel Prize in 2004, verifiably, the icons who blazed the path for local women.

Fielding questions from the Los Angeles Times newspaper Ngilu had this to say:

“I cannot sit back and watch and wait and say, ‘Who can do this?’ I must do this. I am qualified because I am what Kenyans are looking for – a committed, dedicated, honest person who can lead them through the problems they have.”

In the elections, 15 candidates sought to dislodge Moi but floundered.

Ngilu emerged fifth with 7.8% of the vote while Prof. Maathai with 0.07% vote managed 13 position after the president exploited existing ethnic fissures that remain a feature in Kenya’s politics to his advantage.

The next time a woman ran for the top seat would be in 2007 when 40-year-old Nazlin Omar emerged sixth in a field of nine candidates after attracting 0.09% of the vote.

According to Nanjala Nyabola, a Kenyan writer, humanitarian advocate and political analyst, Kenyan politics, she says “will hold up women as emblems but denies them full participation in the highest levels of government, instead publicly referring to female politicians as “flower girls” and creating a political ghetto in the women’s representative positions that effectively writes women out of mainstream politics.

L'articolo Kenyan Women Reduced to Flower Girls in the Presidential Sweepstakes proviene da InsideOver.

Chilean lawmakers have agreed to hold a referendum in April 2020 to scrap the General Augusto Pinochet-era constitution, aimed at reducing inequality problems that have sparked nationwide protests for more than a month.

The country’s parliament members signed a two-page document titled “The Agreement For Peace and A New Constitution” after a long-hour debate. The deal calls for a commitment to creating peace and public order following mass rallies that have turned violent and killed around 20 people.

Why are Chileans taking to the streets?

The increase in subway fare has sparked nationwide rallies since early October in the country once ruled by the military regime. Protesters argued that the public transport fare hike has deepened inequality despite Chile’s robust growth.

On October 26, around one million Chileans took to the street in the capital Santiago, demanding economic reform. This rally was considered the largest after the end of the Pinochet regime in 1990.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera responded by replacing most of his cabinet members. The leader has reshuffled his cabinet twice in the last 15 months. However, such a move did not satisfy Chileans as they wanted the billionaire president to resign from his post.

The 69-year-old president refused to step down, arguing that he was democratically elected. He vowed to take responsibility for the country’s deep inequality, though he claimed he was not the only one to take the blame.

In early November, rallies turned violent when protesters looted the Rome Catholic church and burnt a campus building, Deutsche Welle reported.

Inequality due to neoliberalism economy

A free-market economy that cuts subsidies and privatizes pension (inherited by the Pinochet regime) also angers Chileans. The privatized pension system in Chile has forced Chileans to work hard past their retirement age due to the high payments. The recent poll showed that 50 per cent of Chileans say pension reform is the most urgent issue that needs the government’s handling.

Despite being one of the most prosperous Latin countries, Chile has the highest inequality level among the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) member countries.

Chile’s income gap is 65 per cent higher than the OECD average.

 According to a 2018 government research, as quoted by Reuters, the income of the wealthiest in Chile was 13.5 per cent higher than the country’s poorest.

The image of Pinera eating pizza in an expensive restaurant on the first night of chaos enraged Chileans, regardless of their social classes. Most Chileans are aware of the situation and watching that the government is doing little to narrow the income gap, making Chileans more demanding than people in other countries.

“In Chile’s case, the state is doing nothing in terms of redistribution or to diminish differences in people’s incomes.

“What ends up happening is that people get fed up. Chile has a population that is increasingly educated, that is increasingly aware of the things that are happening, so I think it becomes more difficult to pull the wool over their eyes,” Rodrigo Pérez, a professor of development economics at Santiago’s Universidad Mayor, told Reuters.

Therefore, Chileans want the constitution to be written from scratch. However, the next question lingers.

Will the new constitution end Chileans’ inequality problem?

According to Cesar Valencia, market analyst at Alpari in Santiago, Chile, there is still a debate on whether the new constitution is necessary to end inequality problems.

“That is the great debate we have these days because those who support a new constitution are convinced that it will solve the problems of inequality in our society, because social rights will be incorporated into the new Magna Carta. So the state must make every effort to guarantee society the necessary means to reduce this gap and improve the quality of life of all Chileans regardless of their status,” Valencia told Insideover

On the other hand, those who oppose the constitutional overhaul and want to maintain the constitution of 1980 say that to improve education, pensions, health, end corruption, etc. A new rule is not necessary, but rather to advance laws that aim to end these problems and thus improve the quality of life of Chilean society, “Valencia added.

The Pinochet-era law applies free-market reform, which shifts the state’s responsibility for providing social services to the private entity. However, there is a growing concern from those opposing a new constitution that the welfare system will create a situation like in Bolivia and Venezuela, where a person is eager to stay in power. Still, the fiscal expenditure will increase the state debt, as Valencia explained.

Former president Ricardo Lagos revised the constitution in 2005 by including the state’s recognition of indigenous groups. However, such a change is not seen as the most radical one given the 1980 Pinochet-era rule was still used as the base, Valencia said.

“What is clear is that I have already begun the constitutional process, and there is no going back. Regarding whether or not this will end the inequalities denounced by the population, only time will tell, that is why we are looking to encourage people to vote and thus have the highest possible representation in the new cycle that begins from Chilean society,” Valencia closed the interview session.

L'articolo Chile To Replace Military Regime-Era Constitution proviene da InsideOver.

Parties in the eight-year-long Syrian civil war have been meeting face to face for the first time to discuss constitutional reforms which will help repair the highly polarised nation. A total of 150 delegates, among them members of the civil society, have been meeting in Geneva, Switzerland under the aegis of the United Nations in what is seen as the first step towards a political solution for the Syrian crisis.

Setting the theme for the conference was the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen who said: “Today could become the beginning of something meaningful for Syria and Syrians everywhere. Together we can make this come through.” He, however, insisted that it was upon the Syrian themselves to decide their destiny by ensuring the political process succeeds. “Do not expect me or my team to tell you what to write in your constitution. The future constitution belongs to Syrians, to the Syrian people and them alone.”

At the centre of the talks is the constitution passed by President Bashar Al Assad just at the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2012 in an attempt to meet the protesters demands for reforms. Under the constitution, Assad and his Baath party still retain great control over key institutions such as the judiciary, parliament, and the security forces. He is also responsible for nominating the prime minister. The opposition although agreeing that part of the constitution is good, they are demanding amendments that will devolve power away from Damascus.

The government delegation has already struck a compromise tone by promising that they are ready to consider the demands of the opposition by introducing major amendments or coming up with a new constitution altogether. But according to the UN which is playing the role of a mediator, any constitutional reforms adopted by the constitutional committee “ must be popularly approved and transposed into the national legal order by a means that will need to be approved.”

However, there’s more that needs to be done to create a conducive atmosphere for the success of the political process and the attainment of a sustainable peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis. The country needs international support for reconstruction and a clear commitment from the leaders to uphold peace.

The ongoing civil war has left thousands dead, millions displaced and greatly devastated the country’s infrastructure. According to Human Rights Watch, the scale of destruction and devastation is causing a severe and almost insuperable problem in most parts of the country, and in the face of corruption, and continuing insecurity, the humanitarian and reconstructive needs of Syria are immense.

Data from the UN indicates that over 140,000 buildings were damaged, and around 50,000 destroyed during the war. But the figures could be even higher considering that the security situation cannot allow proper assessment of the destruction to be carried out.

Rebuilding infrastructure and houses, together with providing access to health care, education, basic needs and fundamental human rights, are critical in restoring peace and a good life to the people of Syria. But the reconstructive efforts could be greatly complicated by the lengthy duration of the civil war. According to Samir Aita , Syrian economist and the President of “Cercle des Economistes Arabes” Think Tank:  “The longer the conflict, the more economic and complex social mechanisms change the nature and magnitude of the efforts needed to retrieve a sustainable post-war outcome which can ensure steady progress towards decent livelihoods and an acceptable prospective for the affected population.”

He further opines that “reconstruction needs a functioning economy providing construction materials and qualified human resources operating within predictable supply and demand patterns”. But with the Syrian economy in shambles, much cannot be achieved without international support. The country’s revenues have dwindled immensely due to the loss of control of key oil fields to the opposition forces, US sanctions on the importation of crude oil from Iran, and an EU oil embargo.

In 2019, the country’s total budget was $9bn compared to $18bn in 2011 just before the war. Out of the $9bn budget, only $2.5bn was allocated by the government towards reconstruction. This is like a needle in a haystack considering that the UN has put the cost of the country’s reconstruction at approximately $250bn, while Assad’s government has put it at $400bn.

This leads us to the million-dollar question:

Who will meet the cost of the reconstruction of Syria?

Although Russia has played a great role in propping up the Assad government through military power, it has been hesitant to commit itself to the extensive reconstruction of Syria because of its economic challenges caused by the sanctions imposed by the EU and America after the annexation of Crimea. Instead, it has been calling upon America and her allies to meet the reconstruction costs.

On the other hand, America and the European countries have always insisted that they would only be committed to extensive reconstruction of Syria if Assad vacates office and a new government is installed through elections. However, some European countries such as Hungary, Poland and Italy have realised that Assad has won the war, and are secretly willing to engage with him. But despite the  differences over how to deal with Assad,  the United Nations has still managed to raise over $7bn in aid pledges for Syria from different countries

In conclusion, war leads societies to be divided into factions with grievances. For this reason according to Aita, one of the major issues in the post-conflict recovery is how to deal with these grievances. Therefore, apart from the need for international support for reconstruction, Syria will need a clear commitment from the opposing factions to uphold peace and to give reconciliation a chance. The issue of detainees and missing persons from both sides will have to be addressed, and the refugees returning home must be granted protection. This will help create an environment which is vital for the success of the political process, leading to a happy, peaceful and prosperous Syria that respects human dignity.

L'articolo Constitutional Talks offer Syrians Hope but More Needs to be Done proviene da InsideOver.