'Upheaval couldn't happen here' says Syria's authoritarian president

SYRIA'S president, Bashar al-Assad, has said there is no chance the political upheaval shaking Tunisia and Egypt might spread to his country, which has been controlled by his Baath Party for the past five decades.

In an interview yesterday, Mr Assad said that Syria's ruling hierarchy was "very closely linked to the beliefs of the people" and that there was no mass discontent against the state.

He said that Syria - which has gradually shed its socialist past in favour of a free market - was insulated from the upheaval because he understood his people's needs and has united them in common cause against Israel.

"This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people's beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance," Mr Assad said.

"So, security comes first; how can you stabilise your country, how can you prevent your society from extremists … Second, economy, this is the second urgent priority."

He also blamed the trouble on the West - primarily the United States - for failing to push through peace between Israel and the Arabs and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Anger feeds on desperation," he said.

Mr Assad, 45, was an eye doctor in London before assuming power in Syria from his father, Hafez, in 2000,

Some political commentators suggest Syria could be subject to the same forces being seen in Egypt. Both countries are ruled through emergency law and suffer an acute gap between rich and poor. There is widespread corruption and unemployment officially at 10 per cent, though independent estimates are at least double that.

The countries have similar GDP per capita at about 1,560 and each has a great river - Egypt the Nile and Syria the Euphrates. But water mismanagement has turned Syria's eastern region, bordering Iraq and Turkey, into a dustbowl.

The water crisis in the east, Syria's agricultural heartland, has displaced hundreds of thousands of people over the past five years. Violent demonstrations by the ethnic Kurdish minority also swept the east in 2004, resulting in scores of deaths.

Mr Assad kept the authoritarian system intact after taking over from his father's iron rule, but he said yesterday that the government had started "to involve the people in decision making" by allowing private universities, opening the banking sector and allowing private media.

He said: "It is better than six years ago, but it is not the optimal situation. We still have a long way to go because it is a process.To be realistic, we have to wait for the next generation to bring this reform."

In Damascus this week, feelings were mixed about the regime.

Some spoke out against the corruption, but change is not favoured by all, with ordinary Syrians living in a complex society of myriad sects and ethnicities.

Members of the professional class worry that shattering the current system could result in mob rule, due to low education standards and the erosion of the middle class in recent decades.

"At least we know who is ruling Syria now. If change comes it may not be the middle classes and people with Facebook accounts leading it," a Syrian doctor with a practice in a wealthy area of Damascus said.

"Our rulers have to rebuild the education system and clean up the judiciary, fast. Syria is running out of time."