Bashar gets a living beatification from fellow Syrians

Bashar al-Assad was promoted to the rank of general and commander-in-chief the day after his father died. But Syria's new leader - who will almost certainly be declared president after a referendum next month - is still called "Dr Bashar" - not "General", by all here.

The 34-year-old opthalmologist has ascended in the affections of his people almost as fast as he rose through the army. Perhaps because rulers change so rarely in the Arab world, new - and particularly young - leaders are welcomed with high expectations.

It happened twice last year, when King Abdallah succeeded King Hussein of Jordan and when King Mohamed VI followed King Hassan in Morocco. We heard there would be change, democratisation and modernisation, but have seen little of it.

Now Dr Bashar is undergoing something akin to living beatification. The late President Hafez al-Assad, billboards throughout Damascus tell us, has "gone to paradise for eternity".

The information minister and former Syrian ambassador to London, Mr Adnan Omran, says young Dr Bashar "has presented his vision of a renaissance, a jump forward from old ideas". The word will be familiar to Syrians; "Ba'ath", the party of the late President, means "renaissance". Hope, it seems, is eternally reborn.

Dr Bashar uses Western rhetoric about democracy and respecting opinion. "I am not one of those who keeps power for himself," he told the Egyptian weekly al-Ousboua in an interview conducted before his father died. "I believe in the need to open up to all opinions and listen to all viewpoints."

Mr Omran, the information minister, first met Dr Bashar in the late 1970s, when the president's son was 12 years old. "I was ambassador in London, and he came with his sister and two other brothers on a visit. They stayed in Knightsbridge, at the Sheraton Park Tower. They insisted on behaving like normal citizens."

Bashar surprised and impressed the then ambassador by asking to visit museums. "From this age he was very keen to learn about civilisation. At the end of the visit he said: `It is so organised, so clean. People are so charming.' "

For a young man whose father's pan-Arab ideology led him to attempt union with Egypt and Libya, Bashar al-Assad is decidedly westernised. He studied at the Lycee Francais in Damascus.

His Anglophilia was so strong that he chose London to specialise in opthamology in the early 1990s.

"He lived in a very modest flat off Oxford Street," Mr Omran recalls. "He bought a small British car. He refused to have guards or drivers. He used to get up at 5 a.m. and be in the hospital at 6 a.m. He'd return to his flat at nine in the evening, have a sandwich and prepare for work the next day. He told me, `Adnan, this was a fascinating experience.'

"He could have enjoyed all the most expensive things in life, but he did not. He behaved exactly as a doctor from the middle classes or below."

In his asceticism, Dr Bashar takes after his father, a family man who did not smoke or drink and lived in a modest Damascus villa long after the Lebanese billionaire Rafiq Hariri built a lavish, ultra-modern palace overlooking the capital for him. Dr Bashar also compares favourably with his late older brother Bassel, who was fond of fast cars and women.

Only three days after his death, it is a delicate matter to admit that the rule of President Assad was less than perfect. But the information minister handles the subject adroitly. "Even if you are a strong leader, sometimes you are not able to change things because the bureaucracy is stronger than you are," Mr Omran said.

"There are corrupt people who are shrewd and wicked and can kill any initiative. The president gave a great part of his time to foreign policy and the changes in the Middle East. There was a kind of vacuum."

Dr Bashar, he says, is filling that vacuum. Over the past six months, Syria's new leader installed teams in every government ministry with the aim of combating bureaucracy and corruption. Although satellite television dishes are not legal, they are tolerated because Dr Bashar defends them.

Internet use is restricted, but on Dr Bashar's initiative, a few cyber cafes opened in Damascus this year.

But is Dr Bashar ruthless enough to rule Syria? Some Damascenes fear his gentility could be his downfall. An office clerk dressed in black said she only discovered that she loved Hafez al-Assad when he died. "He was a man," she explained. "He controlled the Syrian people. We need control here in Syria - our people are uncontrollable."

She is old enough to remember the constant coups before Assad took power in 1970. "When I was young, every few days we heard shooting. It was so exciting," she said with mock enthusiasm. "Then for 30 years nothing happened."