Syria is witnessing the first change of government since the removal of al-Assad: media media | Political Affairs

Former President Ahmed al-Sharaa replaces his brother and other governors and reshuffles the cabinet.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has announced a change of government, including removing his brother as head of the presidential office, state news agency SANA reported.

Al-Sharaa appointed the former Governor of Homs Abdul Rahman Badreddine al-Aama as the President’s secretary general. The role was previously held by al-Sharaa’s brother Maher, an appointment that led to accusations of favoritism.

Saturday’s change was the first since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and comes nearly a year and a half into the five-year transition period set out in Syria’s constitutional declaration.

According to the report, the presidential decree appointed Khaled Zaarour as the minister of information, replacing Hamza Mustafa, who was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Bassel Sweidan, who is in charge of the committee that worked to deal with businesses related to Assad’s elite, as the minister of agriculture.

Al-Sharaa also replaced governors in the provinces of Homs, Quneitra and Deir Az Zor, the eastern province where most of Syria’s oil fields are located.

No official reason was given for the change, but Al Jazeera Resul Sardar Atas has done it before report that when al-Sharaa announced its new government in March last year, its choice of officials was criticized.

“People criticized the president for putting all his close friends in all positions,” Atas said.

In recent months, protests and social media campaigns have intensified due to the worsening economy and what critics have described as bad governance, suggesting another reason to replace al-Sharaa’s cabinet.

Apart from the change of government, the government of al-Sharaa since last month has started trials Assad-era officials have been criticized for being slow to implement a promised justice system after Syria’s 14-year civil war, in which nearly half a million people have been killed.

On April 26, proceedings were opened in Damascus against Atef Najib, the former head of political security in southern Syria’s Deraa province.

He is accused of overseeing violent attacks on the opposition there during the 2011 uprising, which led to the civil war, and is facing charges related to “crimes against the Syrian people”, according to SANA.

Najib, who is al-Assad’s cousin, is the only person to appear in court in preparation for the trial, which will continue this month.

Absent defendants are al-Assad and his brother Maher, the former commander of the Syrian army’s 4th Armored Division. Along with other senior security officials who were prosecuted in absentia, they are accused of murder, torture, extortion and drug trafficking.