The Syrian National Coalition General Assembly has confirmed Acting President Abdulrahman Mustafa as the SNC's new president. Mustafa is replacing the veteran Syrian opposition leader Riad Seif, who had resigned for health issues.
The 39th session of the SNC’s General Assembly began Saturday, with very little interest from the Syrian people, whether inside or outside Syria.
The General Assembly meetings were once big news, where regional powers competed and election races were neck to neck.
Today the elections have taken place with little media coverage and low expectations.
Mustafa represents the Syrian Turkmen Assembly, a political coalition that represent the Turkey-backed minority in Syria.
One day before the elections, there were reports that the Turkmen bloc in the coalition had threatened to resign themselves as a unit.
According to reports, the bloc, composed of 12 representatives, sent a letter in which it said the it was resigning collectively because of “the Coalition’s lack of agreement to the Turkmen council’s letter around changing members.”
It seems that the confirmation of Mustafa as president has come as a settlement.
The Coalition GA also elected Dima Moussa, a liberal feminist, Nazeer al-Hakim, a Muslim Brotherhood veteran leader, and Bader Jamous, a Syrian businessman with close connections to Russia, as vice-presidents.
The new Political Commission (the political command of the coalition) contains Anas al-Abdeh, Hadi al-Bahra, Abd al-Ahad Isteifo, Mohamad al-Abdullah, Bashar al-Zoubi, Amal Shaykhu, Riad al-Hasan, Ahmad Ramadan, Jamal al-Ward, Okab Yahia, Yahia Maktabi, Haytham Rahmeh, Yasser Farhan, Hawas Khalil, Abdulmajid Barakat, Mohamad Sallou, Fadi Ibrahim, and Fuad Aliko.
A wave of resignations rocked the Coalition a few days before the elections. Former SNC presidents Khaled Khoja and Riad Saif, former National Council chairman George Sabra and former vice president Suhair Atassi resigned from the coalition's general assembly.
