Query: What was Syria like under Sarraj?
Context: By moving the latter two, who were Ba'athists, to Cairo, he neutralized important political figures who had their own ideas about how Syria should be run. He put Syria under Sarraj, who effectively reduced the province to a police state by imprisoning and exiling landholders who objected to the introduction of Egyptian agricultural reform in Syria, as well as communists. Following the Lebanese election of Fuad Chehab in September 1958, relations between Lebanon and the UAR improved considerably.