How Arab autocrats pick their opponents
Successful strongman seeks short-term partner with nice smile but limited ambition
CANDIDATES FOR president often need no introduction: a run for the top job is the capstone on a long, striving career in the public eye. Not so for Faten Ali Nahar, who seems to have found ambition late in life. On April 20th the speaker of Syria’s parliament announced that Ms Nahar had registered to stand in this month’s presidential election. Hardly anyone in Syria had heard of her. Searches on social media yielded little. A widely circulated photo of a woman said to be her also appears on a Facebook post about a Russian pharmacist who committed suicide in 2017.
If Ms Nahar’s bio and agenda were a mystery, they were also irrelevant. The incumbent, Bashar al-Assad, has spent a decade destroying his country to stay in power. He has no intention of losing.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline "How despots pick their opponents"
Middle East & Africa May 8th 2021
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- How Arab autocrats pick their opponents
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