Democratic Arab Socialist Union
The Democratic Arab Socialist Union is a Nasserist democratic socialist Syrian political party based in Paris, France. It was founded in a split of the Arab Socialist Union Party of Syria, with Hassan 'Abd al-Azim as its general secretary. The party is the largest of the opposition parties, but has a 'soft' approach in its opposition.
Creation
After Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970, the ASU entered into negotiations about a coalition government, and agreed to join the National Progressive Front in 1972. The year after, however, the party split over the adoption of a Syrian constitution in which the Ba'ath was proclaimed the "leading party" of the country. One minor faction under Fawzi Kiyali accepted the constitution, and retained both the ASU name and the NPF membership, while most members followed party leader Jamal al-Atassi into opposition, by renaming themselves the Democratic Arab Socialist Union. Hassan Abdelazim succeeded Jamal al-Atassi after his death in 2000.Hassan Ismail Abdelazim was arrested by the Syrian authorities in May 2011 as a crackdown on opposition forces in Syria, but he was quickly released.
Affiliations
The DASU is part of the National Democratic Rally coalition. The party is one of the largest in the coalition, and has a historic rivalry with other most major party in the group, the Syrian Democratic People's Party. This rivalry would cripple the front.On June 30, 2011, DASU, along with other parties, established the The National Coordination Bureau for the Forces of Democratic Change with several other opposition parties, most of which were in the NBC with it.
The DASU party had some of the executives of the NBC including:
- General Coordinator: Hassan Abdelazim
- Mays Kreidi
- Raja Al-Nasser