page_title: History of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region
section_title: Elections, the UAR and factionalism: 1954–1961
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region / Elections, the UAR and factionalism: 1954–1961
caption_attribution_description: English: Akram al-Hawrani (left) with Michel Aflaq, founder of the Baath Party, in 1957. The two leaders were vehemently Arab nationalist and worked relentlessly to drive Syria towards Arab nationalism and an alliance with Gamal Abd al-Nasser of Egypt.
context_section_description: Syrian politics took a dramatic turn in 1954 when the military government of Adib al-Shishakli was overthrown and the democratic system restored. The Ba'ath, now a large and popular organisation, won 15 out of 142 parliamentary seats in the Syrian election that year, becoming the second-largest party in parliament. Most of the new members of parliament were independents. The Ba'ath Party was one of the most organised parties in parliament, rivaled only by the Syrian Communist Party (SCP) and the People's Party. The SCP and the Ba'ath Party were the only parties able to organise mass protests among workers.
  The Ba'ath Party was supported by the intelligentsia because of their pro-Egyptian and anti-imperialist stance and their advocation of social reform. The Ba'ath faced considerable competition from ideological enemies, notably the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), which supported the establishment of a Greater Syria. The Ba'ath Party's main adversary was the SCP, whose support for class struggle and internationalism was anathema to the Ba'ath. All these parties competed with each other and Islamists in street-level activity and sought support among the military.
  The assassination of Ba'athist colonel Adnan al-Malki by a member of the SSNP in April 1955 allowed the Ba'ath Party and its allies to launch a crackdown, thus eliminating one rival. In 1957, the Ba'ath Party partnered with the SCP to weaken the power of Syria's conservative parties. By the end of that year, the SCP weakened the Ba'ath Party to such an extent that in December the Ba'ath Party drafted a bill calling for a union with Egypt, a move that was very popular. The union between Egypt and Syria went ahead and the United Arab Republic (UAR) was created, and the Ba'ath Party was banned in the UAR because of Nasser's hostility to parties other than his own. The Ba'ath leadership dissolved the party in 1958, gambling that the legalisation of certain parties would hurt the SCP more than it would the Ba'ath.
  Meanwhile, a small group of Syrian Ba'athist officers stationed in Egypt watched the party's poor position and the increasing fragility of the union with alarm. They formed a secret military committee whose initial members were Lieutenant-Colonel Muhammad Umran, Major Salah Jadid and Captain Hafez al-Assad. At first, the committee did not play a political role in the Ba'athist movement; its unclear whether leading Ba'athist officials knew of the Military Committee's existence before the 8th of March Revolution.
  A military coup in Damascus in 1961 brought the UAR to an end. Sixteen prominent politicians, including al-Hawrani and Salah al-Din al-Bitar – who later retracted his signature, signed a statement supporting the coup. The Ba'athists won several seats during the 1961 parliamentary election.
caption: Akram al-Hawrani (left) with Michel Aflaq as seen in 1957.
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