The head of Syria's top opposition body said today he was ready to step down for the sake of unity among dissidents whose divisions have kept them from their goal of recognition as successors to President Bashar al-Assad.
"I declare my resignation as soon as a replacement is found through elections or consensus," Syrian National Council (SNC) president Burhan Ghalioun told Reuters. "I have not chosen this post for personal gain, but I have been accepting it to preserve cohesion. I am not ready to be a cause for division. The revolution is above personalities."
Mr Ghalioun, a sociologist based in France, was re-elected just two days earlier as head of the group he has led since August, a result that angered critics who had hoped to bring in a leader who would rectify what they see as Mr Ghalioun's failings.
These include failing to strengthen ties with anti-Assad forces in Syria, including a growing insurgency, and providing a liberal, secular veneer to an uprising whose armed element is drawn from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority.
The prominence of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood in the organisation and finances of the SNC, and the sectarian Islamist language of rebels on the ground, have alarmed religious minorities and secularists in the opposition.
The resignation offer was welcomed by some of Mr Ghalioun's more vocal critics, who said it could pave the way for the SNC to patch up its rifts in the process of choosing another leader.
George Sabra, a leftist who came in second to Mr Ghalioun in the SNC vote, said it would now be forced to bring under-represented opposition leaders and activists inside Syria into its deliberations, adding: "The opposition needs to show its democratic credentials and bring in a new face."
The Local Coordinating Committees, an activists' network with a presence in Syria that had threatened to quit the council because it was estranged from activists on the ground, called the move "positive" and backed off resigning.
Reuters