ISTANBUL - Syrian opposition leaders chose Western-educated
technocrat Ghassan Hitto as provisional prime minister in what they hope will be
the first step to fill a power vacuum arising from a two-year-long revolt
against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
At a meeting of the Syrian National
Coalition in Istanbul that stretched well into the night, Hitto received 35
votes of around 50 cast by coalition members.
"I give great thanks to the
heroes and revolutionaries of the Syrian people. We are with you," Hitto told
coalition members in brief remarks after he was named.
With large swathes
of Syria falling to the opposition in the last few weeks while still being
subjected to devastating artillery and aerial bombardment, as well as ballistic
missile attacks, Hitto faces a daunting task in setting up an administration to
compensate for the collapse of the central government.
Assad is using his
government's ability to still deliver some services, such as fuel and the
Internet, to placate several regions that contain supply routes to his forces,
according to opposition sources.
At least 70,000 people have been killed
since a peaceful protest movement led by Syria's Sunni Muslim majority broke out
two years ago against four decades of family rule by Assad, who belongs to the
minority Alawite sect, and his father, the late Hafez al-Assad.
The
demonstrations were met by bullets, eventually sparking a Sunni backlash and a
mostly Islamist armed insurgency increasingly spearheaded by the al Qaeda-linked
al-Nusra Front, creating a political dilemma for regional and Western powers and
deepening the Shi'ite-Sunni divide in the Middle East.
Fifty-year old
Hitto, who has US citizenship and worked in the communications sector in the
United States before working on securing humanitarian assistance for the
uprising, is seen a centrist figure within the opposition.
He will have
to secure funding of at least $500 million a month for an alternative
administration to deliver services, reopen schools and pay public employees in
regions where central authority had collapsed, a coalition official
said.
"We now have a chance. At least a competent person has been chosen
and he can start. If we had delayed naming a premier any longer it would have
been too late," the official said.
Hitto was elected with backing from
the coalition's secretary general Mustafa Sabbagh, a businessman with strong
connections in the Gulf who has emerged as a kingmaker, along with the powerful
Muslim Brotherhood, which heavily influences a large bloc in the coalition,
according to coalition sources.
It remains unclear what type of
relationship Hitto will have with coalition president Moaz al-Khatib, a moderate
cleric from Damascus who has been playing the role of statesman and who has been
lukewarm about forming a government.
Several senior coalition members,
including tribal leader Ahmad Jarba and veteran opposition campaigners Walid
al-Bunni and Kamal al-Labwani withdrew from the session before the vote to
protest what they described as a hasty foreign-backed push to choose
Hitto.
But Hitto's supporters argued that their man was a qualified
manager untainted by the coalition's internal political struggles.
"A
near consensus emerged on Hitto. He is a practical man with management
experience and is open to debate. He promised to consult widely before naming
ministers and only appoint those with a long experience," said Mohammad Qaddah,
the coalition's representative from Deraa, cradle of the two-year
uprising.
Louay Safi, another coalition member, said Hitto is expected to
form a government that includes defence and foreign ministers as well as a main
focus on service portfolios.
"Basically this government is going to
provide services to liberated areas," Safi said. Hitto has the technical
abilities that you expect from the technocrat but he also has a sense of
politics and is a very good negotiator. He would be a good representative to the
international community." The Western- and Gulf-backed coalition was formed last
year as an umbrella group of the opposition, but it has little control over the
hundreds of rebel brigades fighting to depose four decades of Assad family
rule.
Underpinning the difficulty of filling in the power vacuum, at
least seven people in the northern city of Aleppo were killed in fighting on
Sunday between gunmen employed by a self-appointed court run along Islamist
lines and linked to Nusra and members of a rebel brigade, opposition activists
in the city said.
The clashes occurred in the neighbourhood of Sakhour
when the court gunmen tried to arrest members of the Shahba Shield brigade on
suspicion of involvement in criminal activity, the sources said.
Selim
Idris, head of opposition Supreme Military Council, said after briefing the
coalition on the military situation, that Assad's firepower makes it impossible
for the rebel Free Syrian Army to guarantee the safety of the new government if
it operates from inside Syria, but he said the opposition had to take the
risks.
"Our people in liberated areas are languishing under destroyed
infrastructure, without water, power and sanitation," Idris said.