France Press

PARIS: The opposition Syrian National Council will add 100 new members and new organizations inside and outside the country to its ranks, a spokesman promised Sunday.
 
At a meeting in Stockholm late Saturday, the SNC agreed to expand its membership and to hold a vote later this month to elect its leadership, spokesman George Sabra said.
 
The move follows criticism from both within and outside the group that it is failing to unite the diverse opposition forces working against President Bashar Assad, after more than 17 months of brutal conflict.
 
“New currents of the opposition will join the SNC. There will be at least five or six new groups from inside and outside Syria” joining the organization, Sabra said.
 
The group’s general assembly will grow from 300 to 400 members and each opposition group will be represented by 20 members, Sabra said.
 
Under a reform agreed in Stockholm, the assembly will elect a general secretariat that will then choose an executive bureau and leader for the SNC.
 
Leaders have previously been chosen by consensus in the group, which brings together diverse regime opponents ranging from liberals to Islamists.
 
The mandate of current SNC leader Abdel-Basset Sayda, which was due to expire on Sept. 9, has been extended and he will stay on until the vote is held in late September, Sabra said.
 
There were no plans, however, for the SNC to expand to include another prominent opposition grouping, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), which favors a nonviolent overthrow of the government and opposes foreign military intervention.
 
“The composition of the SNC will not be the same, but currents close to the NCC will not be integrated,” said Monzer Makhous, the SNC’s external relations coordinator.
 
The SNC has faced frequent criticism for failing to fully represent Syria’s opposition.