Syrian National Council chief Burhan Ghalioun said yesterday he is resigning to avert divisions within the opposition bloc, after activists on the ground accused him of monopolising power.
“I will not allow myself to be the candidate of division, I am not attached to a position, so I announce that I will step down after a new candidate has been chosen, either by consensus or through new elections,” said the Paris-based academic.
His statement came as Syrian forces launched a blistering assault on the rebel stronghold Rastan in central Homs province, in a new bid to overrun one of the major opposition holdouts against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Mr Ghalioun, who has led by consensus rather than through election since the SNC’s founding in October 2011, was re-elected as the exile group’s chairman in a vote held in Rome on Tuesday.
He said he would remain an SNC member “hand-in-hand with the young people who struggle, the young people of the revolution of dignity and freedom, until victory,” while urging all opposition groups to overcome their divisions.
Highlighting those divisions, the Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists on the ground, threatened hours earlier to pull out of the SNC over its lack of collaboration with activists in Syria and “monopolisation” of power.
“The deteriorating situation in the SNC is an impetus for us to take actions, which could begin with a freeze (of LCC membership in the SNC) and end with a withdrawal if errors are not solved and demands for reform go unmet,” said the network.
These “errors” were “a total absence of consensus between the SNC’s vision and that of the revolutionaries”; “a marginalisation of most (LCC) representatives”; and “a monopolisation of decision-making by influential members of the executive bureau.”
The LCC also criticised the SNC over the strong influence that Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood wields over the coalition.
It nonetheless emphasised the “continuation of the revolution” as well as “the peaceful movement on the ground.”
It also commended “the sacrifices of our heroes, the Free Syrian Army, in the defence of cities bombarded by the army of the regime, and their determination to protect peaceful demonstrations despite all the difficulties they face.”
Clashes persist nation-wide despite an April 12 truce brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan as part of a six-point plan aimed at ending violence that has swept Syria since March 2011, when the uprising against Assad erupted.