Член парламента Сирии Навар Наджем заявил, что политические партии в стране не нужны «сейчас», аргументируя это необходимостью сначала установить социальный договор и конституцию

Nawar Najmeh is a member of the Syrian People’s Assembly, serving on the presidential list announced on July 1, 2026. Born in Damascus in 1977, he holds a medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine at Damascus University, a master’s degree in diagnostic radiology from the University of Paris Faculty of Medicine, and postgraduate diplomas in magnetic resonance imaging and osteoradiology from the same institution. Najmeh was asked, “When do we want political parties?” His answer is the most dangerous sentence in modern Syrian politics: “Not now.” His argument is elegant. First, he says, Syria needs a social contract, a constitution, stability, transitional justice, and political isolation. Only then can it have political parties. If parties are allowed now, he argues, they will simply become sectarian, religious, or regional. This logic is fundamentally backward. Political parties are not the prize a nation receives after it has been built. They are one of the tools by which nations are built. Who, exactly, is supposed to negotiate the social contract he describes? Who will draft the constitution? A committee of enlightened intellectuals? History has answered this question repeatedly: without political parties, there is no genuine social contract—only one imposed by whoever holds power. Second, notice what he quietly inserts into his list of preconditions: “political isolation, whether formal or social.” This is not justice. It is exclusion without due process. It amounts to saying: we will decide who is allowed to participate in politics and who must be socially excluded, and only after we finish excluding people can political life begin. That is not a path to national unity. It is a blueprint for a one-party—or at least one-color—state. Third, his justification reflects a profoundly paternalistic view of society. He argues that Syrians are currently too sectarian to form parties based on economic or political ideas. But if people think in sectarian terms today, banning political parties will not make them think in economic terms tomorrow. It will simply drive sectarianism underground, where it is more likely to organize around militias, tribes, or religious networks. The only way to transform sectarian identity into democratic politics is to bring it into the open—to require political movements to organize as parties, present coherent policy platforms, and compete for votes beyond their own communities. Najmeh says he fears division. Yet it is precisely the absence of political parties that guarantees division. Without national political organizations, people inevitably organize around the mosque, the sect, the village, or the gun. What Najmeh ultimately proposes is not a path toward mature democracy. It is the oldest argument against democracy itself: that society is not yet ready. History shows where that argument leads. “Not now” easily becomes “not yet,” and “not yet” becomes “never.” Syria does not need intellectual maturity before it allows political parties. It needs political parties to help create that maturity. Parties now—not later.