Taking time out from late-night negotiations with a coalition of opposition movements from Islamists to communists in a smoke-filled Brussels hotel conference room, Abdel-Halim Khaddam predicted a popular revolt to oust Assad soon.

“Poverty is very widespread, corruption is extremely widespread also, security is very tight. People are not allowed freedom of speech and the economic situation is at its worst.

“All those factors combined resemble a lot the position of Romania which led to the uprising,” the former foreign minister and ruling Baath party official said.

Like the men who ruled Romania after Ceausescu and his wife were toppled, summarily tried and shot in 1989, Khaddam has re-invented himself as a democrat in the belief that the Syrian people will turn to reformists from within the ruling party to govern them after a revolution.

“There is a big part of reformists within the Baath party who totally support my actions. They will be active partners in the regime change and there will be no massacre,” said the diminutive, soft-spoken political veteran, who was in government for 35 years until he fell out with Assad last year.

 Family interests

Khaddam said the young president, who inherited power when his father Hafez Al Assad died in 2000, has skewed policy-making in favour of a tiny family inner circle.

“What’s actually happening is he’s letting the interest of the family around him be the priority behind taking those decisions. What I mean is himself, his brother (Maher Al Assad), his brother-in-law (intelligence chief Asef Shawkat) and the very close family.

”The interest of this family is what is leading to the Syrian decisions,” he said.

The opposition is counting on a United Nations investigation into the assassination last year of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al Hariri to deal a decisive blow to Assad.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Bayanouni, the other major figure among the 17 men around the table in Brussels, told Reuters he expected the U.N. probe, which has so far implicated Syrian security officials, to accuse the president directly.

“The regime is headed primarily by the president himself. So if the head of the regime fell or broke up, definitely the whole regime would fall,” Khaddam said.

Asked when he expected an uprising, he said: “This year. I’m sure, inshallah (God willing). In a few months. Bashar Al Assad is making a lot of mistakes and he’s digging himself into a hole.”

Khaddam and Bayanouni make strange bedfellows, and other opposition politicians say their alliance shows just how serious the opposition is about uniting to oust Assad.

Khaddam was foreign minister in 1982 when Syrian security forces crushed an Islamist uprising in the town of Hama, killing at least 10,000 people and possibly twice that number.

The former vice-president now says he deeply regrets those events, but is careful to blame both sides for the slaughter.

Bayanouni, who oozes moderation and says his movement would welcome sharing power with a reformed Baath party, said Khaddam had atoned for the past and “joined the side of the people to support democratic change”.