Members of the western-backed Syrian National Coalition said that the opposition leader Ahmed Jarba has retracted his intention to run for a second term extension as president.
Sources said previously that the Coalition leader was seeking to amend the Coalition’s rules of procedure to extend his presidency for another year. The move was an atrempt to divide the Coalition and get Jarba out of it, analysts said.
The Coalition has recently witnessed a new state of harmony, which has timed with the declaration and the return of 44 members who withdrew from the group before the latest visit by Jarba to Saudi Arabia, the main supporter to the opposition.
Sources told Zaman al-Wasl that the idea of the extension the presidency was cancelled as a result of the return of those members who withdrew, mostly from the Syrian National Council bloc. That act changed the voters’ number and balance, as Jarba before had relied on his supporters among the remaining 70 members, while only 37 votes are enough to win the presidency.
Sources added that Jarba was neutral towards the 44 members’ return, as he neither encouraged nor discouraged it, despite it help in uniting the opposition.
One source confirmed that Jarba has not abandoned his extension project, but that changes in the Coalition pushed him to put it on hold for a while, or he would replace it with Putin-Medvadiv plan, whereby he will regularly exchange presidency with someone else from among his supporters.
Sources added that Jarba and his group in the Coalition might support other figures in June’s election. Badr Jamous and Hadi al-Bahra are among the most likely popular figures, which will guarantee that decision-making would stay in hands of Jarba’s group.
The plan would not end this June, but it would be implemented during the following election six months later, when Jarba would be legally eligible as a candidate for election.
“All that would not be needed if Jarba found a means to extend his presidency, without those indirect plans,” the source concluded.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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