During the existence of its 61-year Ba'ath party rule, the politics of Ba'athist Syria took place in the framework of a one-party presidential republic where independent parties were outlawed, with a powerful secret police that cracked down on dissidents. with nominal multi-party representation in People's Council under the Ba'athist-dominated National Progressive Front. From the 1963 seizure of power by its neo-Ba'athist Military Committee to the fall of the Assad regime, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party operated a totalitarian police state in Syria. After a period of intra-party strife, Hafez al-Assad gained control of the party following the 1970 coup d'état and his family dominated the country's politics.
Until the early stages of the Syrian uprising, the president had broad and unchecked decree authority under a long-standing state of emergency. The end of this emergency was a key demand of the uprising. Superficial reforms in 2011 made presidential decrees subject to approval by the People's Council, the country's legislature, which was itself dominated to parties loyal to the president. The Ba'ath Party was Syria's ruling party and the previous Syrian constitution of 1973 stated that "the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party leads society and the state." At least 183 seats of the 250-member parliament were reserved for the National Progressive Front, a Ba'ath Party dominated coalition that consists of nine other satellite parties loyal to Ba'athist rule. The rest of the seats are occupied by independents, who are nominated by the Ba'ath party.
