Holding new elections in Syria could take up to four years, rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa – who oversaw the offensive that ousted President Bashar al-Assad – has said in a broadcast interview.
This is the first time the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group has given a timeline for possible elections in Syria.
In an interview with Saudi state broadcaster Al Arabiya on Sunday, he also revealed that drafting a new constitution could take up to three years.
It could also be a year before Syrians begin to see significant change and improvements to public services following the overthrow of the Assad regime, he warned.
Sharaa said Syria needed to rebuild its legal system and would have to hold a comprehensive population census to run legitimate elections.
Sharaa – previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – has led the country’s new authorities after the Assad presidency fell earlier this month.
Since then, questions have been raised over how HTS will govern the multi-ethnic country, which is home to many religious and ethnic groups including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shia and Arab Sunnis, the latter of whom make up a majority of the Muslim population.
His group has promised to protect the rights and freedoms of minorities in the country.
HTS began as a jihadist group – espousing violence to achieve its goal of establishing a state governed by Islamic law (Sharia) – but has distanced itself from that past in recent years.
Sharaa said the group, which was once aligned with Islamic State and al- Qaeda and is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN and many countries, will be “dissolved” at an upcoming national dialogue conference but gave no further details.
Meanwhile, nearly 300 people have been arrested in the past week in a crackdown on Assad loyalists, according to a UK-based war monitor.
Those arrested include informants, pro-regime fighters and former soldiers, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He told AFP news agency the arrests had been taking place “with the cooperation of local populations”.
“Among those arrested, according to the Observatory, were former regime informants, pro-Iranian fighters and lower-ranking military officers accused of killings and torture,” he continued.
Abdel Rahman said that “the campaign is ongoing, but no prominent figures have been arrested,” except for General Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, the former head of military justice under Assad, who reportedly oversaw thousands of death sentences following summary trials at Saydnaya prison.
