The recent Syrian parliamentary elections have come within the framework of what the regime has called starting to implement reforms on the basis of pluralism. These elections were marred by procedural, political and practical flaws – particularly that of moving forward with holding them without any serious internal debate that would determine their significance and their function, in a climate of tremendous civil division and armed confrontations in various parts of the country. Despite all of this, after these elections were held and won, and after the President issued a decree to hold the parliamentary session and new committees within the new parliament were appointed, the government was supposed to resign so as for a new government to be formed. This is what happens in every part of the civilized world, where elections are followed by the formation of a new government based on the balance of power within the new parliament. All of this has not happened so far in Syria – not because the balance of power, after these elections that were supposed to be pluralistic, has not changed, nor because the Prime Minister might not dare to hand in his resignation out of fear of how this might be explained under such circumstances. This has not happened in Syria because the regime, quite simply, is not dealing with what it has announced in terms of reforms as if they were serious matters that should be dealt with accordingly, even if only in form. It sought to make such declarations in order to disguise its resolve to persist in its methods of exercising power on the one hand, and to justify its persistence to implement the military solution before its international allies on the other, and nothing more. In this sense, all of its claims to reform become null and void, as do the steps it has announced taking, of which it was said that they would represent a model of democracy and of the exercise of pluralism. With it also become null and void its declarations of commitment to the plan of joint UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, especially in terms of dialogue and in terms of the transition of power as a result of such dialogue. Moreover, it is believed that the massacres perpetrated against civilians and peaceful populations were intended to be resounding, so as to keep Annan's plan at square one, as well as to maintain all sorts of discussions into the security aspect of the matter, which provides opportunities to speak of foreign interference, armed groups, weapon smuggling and fighters from abroad. In other words, it provides the opportunity to divert the root of the problem from the issue of a regime and its exercise of power to an issue that has been produced by this problem – with everything this means in terms of broadening the scope of the crisis, and with it the spread of protests and confrontations, and an increase in the number of victims, in such a way so as to render any settlement unfeasible. The regime has carried out the reforms it wants, in the manner we have seen in the People's Council elections, after ending the state of emergency and allowing for the freedom of political parties, etc... Yet it is working to prevent any of those reforms from having any effect on the way power is exercised, and to maintain decision-making in the small circle of security services, rather than in that of the laws and reforms it has enacted itself. In other words, all of these reforms merely represent a thin coat of colored paint over the situation that is being complained about – a situation that has led to the eruption of the protest movement and to military defections, reaching up to armed confrontations. Thus it seems that Annan's plan, which the regime is working to prevent from moving past the first clause, i.e. that of security, is facing a predicament that cannot be resolved, in the form of the Syrian regime's inability to engage in any kind of political dialogue, neither with the opposition nor with anyone else, because it only engages in dialogue with itself. It also takes the form of the regime's inability to evolve in any way, even if it itself calls for it. Consequently, it seems that the warnings of disaster in Syria, after the regime has driven the country to civil division and war, are to a great extent realistic – especially as the political and military opposition, which has so far failed to find balance with the regime, is heading further and further towards the logic of warfare without putting forward a unifying vision for how to organize the confrontation and avoid disaster.
