Syria’s phantom institutions
Promised state overhaul has delivered the illusion of government

“We will strive to build state institutions on the foundation of transparency and accountability (…) building strong institutions for the state, based on competency and justice, not corruption, cronyism or bribes.” This was interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s pledge to the Syrian people at the Victory Conference on 29 January 2025. After years of civil war, many Syrians were willing to believe him.

More than 140 days into his presidency, however, the gap between rhetoric and reality continues to widen. With each passing month, it becomes harder to attribute this to the practical constraints of a country emerging from war. While no one expects flawless governance overnight, the choices made by the interim government raise growing concerns: authoritarian mechanisms based on loyalty and patronage appear not as temporary necessities, but deliberate tools of power.

Nearly all of the mechanisms outlined in the Constitutional Declaration of 13 March 2025 remain unrealised or inactive. Sharaa has yet to appoint a vice president, despite Article 34 mandating one. The People’s Assembly, which he is authorised to fill with appointees, remains conspicuously vacant. This vacuum has real consequences: should the president become incapacitated or die, there is no legal line of succession — a constitutional time bomb waiting to go off in the event of crisis.

Even symbolic gestures of state-building, such as the adoption of a new national emblem or anthem, have been postponed or ignored.

Rule of five
Power is concentrated in a coterie of five men – none of whom are meaningfully accountable to the public. Foremost is Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani who, in addition to being Syria’s top diplomat, is also head of the General Secretariat for Political Affairs. To all intents and purposes this shadow body inherits many of the functions of the now-defunct Ba’ath Party: controlling independent political activity and maintaining ideological homogeneity across government. Shaibani has even shifted his operations from the Foreign Ministry to the Presidential Palace – a symbolic elevation that underscores the informal reconfiguration of power.

Interior Minister Anas Khattab oversees a reconstituted security apparatus that rewards loyalty and efficiency. His appointments draw heavily from the remnants of HTS's intelligence wing, experienced as it was in suppressing dissent in Idlib. In response to Khattab’s ballooning influence, Sharaa recently appointed a new intelligence chief, Hussein al-Salamah. The overlap in loyalties and reporting lines suggests that Sharaa wants more than one spymaster in his regime.

Most interesting features are the roles of the president’s brothers. Dr Maher al-Sharaa, now Secretary General of the Presidency, acts as both adviser and enforcer. He exerts informal control over several ministries, gatekeeps access to the president, and has reportedly imposed his will on internal ministry appointments. Despite attending most of the president’s cabinet meetings, he is never mentioned in official communiqués. He is the ghost at the table.

Hazem al-Sharaa, head of the Investment Authority, has marginalised to a great extent the economic ministries, and controls decision-making on investment and development. This has created a parallel economic policy structure, in which informal networks from HTS retain de facto control over lucrative sectors. In an attempt to escape these entrenched fiefdoms, Mohammad al-Bashir, the ex-prime minister and newly appointed Energy Minister, reportedly avoids his own ministry’s offices, choosing instead to operate from the prime ministerial complex. 

The fifth man is Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, who enjoys a good reputation among the armed factions. 

System not working
The consequences of the convoluted architecture of government are manifold. The law is moribund. Ministries remain in limbo because outdated legislation cannot be revised because no legislature exists to enact reforms. Ministers have acknowledged the need for updated investment frameworks but without parliamentary authority (Article 30 in the Constitutional Declaration), no progress is possible. 

Worse still, transitional justice – a key demand of civil society and the revolutionary street – has not been addressed. Articles 48 and 49 of the constitutional declaration, which call for the establishment of a justice commission and for the prosecution of past regime abuses, remain inert. The legal impunity of Syria’s Assad-era security elite is a bug of the new system that requires urgent attention. 

The judiciary itself has been left hollow. The High Constitutional Court (Article 47) has yet to be established, and the Supreme Judicial Council (Article 45) lacks both existence and legal definition. The Ministry of Justice is in a general state of paralysis. 

There is no functioning budget. Article 30 again proves pivotal: without a parliament, there can be no fiscal oversight. Ministries operate blindly, while HTS-linked security arms continue to fund themselves through the management of state monopolies. In the Qalamoun region, for instance, gravel pits run by such networks generate cash well beyond treasury oversight.

Political accountability fares no better. No party law has been passed (Article 14). Civil society institutions, highly active during the revolution, have been either dissolved or suffocated. Public gatherings by fledgling political groupings are regularly obstructed. 

The country’s administrative machinery is bloated and ineffective. The caretaker government that preceded Sharaa’s cabinet had three months to implement civil service reform. Instead, it simply reinstated thousands of officials dismissed after 8 December, compounding inefficiency and corruption. Attempts to implement the Assad-era Law 107 on local government and in particular to clarify jurisdictional boundaries between provincial governors and the Ministry of Local Administration have resulted in confusion. Once seen as potentially offering a model for decentralisation, provincial level governance is increasingly tangled in overlapping chains of command and turf wars.

A nominal oversight body – the Central Authority for Inspection and Oversight – has been revived, but is now chaired by Amer Names al-Ali, a close relative of the new intelligence chief. The Authority appears more disciplinary than regulatory. Essentially it is a tool for sidelining unwanted figures within the ruling apparatus.

The civil service payroll system mirrors Syria’s factional fragmentation. Public employees now fall into three tiers. Legacy civil servants earn $30–60 per month. New hires, often on short-term contracts, earn $200–400. HTS loyalists or politically connected employees can expect anywhere from $400 to $1,000. The signal this sends is clear: loyalty, not competence, will be rewarded. Unsurprisingly, strikes and work slowdowns are on the rise.

Economically, Sharaa has taken it upon himself to negotiate – opaquely – with the United States, Russia, Israel, and others, despite constitutional restrictions on treaty-making. The result may be international accords that shape Syria’s economic and political future but were made without public consultation or legislative approval. Some may include commercial concessions to foreign firms that could destroy Syria’s not insignificant industrial base.

Article 8 of the constitutional declaration explicitly ties recovery to the lifting of international sanctions and the resumption of foreign capital flows – objectives repeatedly endorsed by ministers in public statements. No investment legislation has been enacted, however, so even if sanctions were to be suspended as part of a regional deal, the investment climate remains unencouraging.

Useful illusions
What is emerging in Syria is not so much a failed state as a hollowed-out one. The trappings of governance exist – ministers, ministries, announcements, ceremonies, meetings, photo-ops; but the substance does not. Sharaa’s rule is defined by the presence of institutions but in phantom form. Accountability mechanisms are avoided; transparency is smothered. Authority is centralised in the person of the president and radiates outwards from him through a constellation of loyalists, family members and HTS veterans.

For all his failings, however, Sharaa has achieved a certain kind of ad-hoc coherence. Syria today is not anarchic. It is tightly, if crudely, controlled. There is a logic to its dysfunction. It is an architecture of exclusion, designed to preserve power rather than distribute it, and it maintains a semblance of order. 

Will this architecture hold? It may, for a time. The Syrian public, exhausted and impoverished, has little appetite for renewed upheaval. But no regime – especially in Syria – can endure indefinitely without mechanisms of reform and renewal. Ahmad al-Sharaa, smooth and statesmanlike, may be a better salesman of power than his grimly austere alter-ego Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. He may even get sanctions suspended and hit it off with Trump. But unless he begins to make good on his earlier promises to build strong institutions, he may soon find that even the most carefully crafted illusion cannot endure indefinitely.