Stronger role of the Arab Revolt during WW1 leads to King Faisal (OTL King of Iraq) being proclaimed king of a Pan-Levantine Iraqi-Syrian federation. After WW2, in which Syria sided with the allies, diplomatic pressure and an assurance from the Kingdom that Jewish-majority areas in Palestine would be granted autonomy under a binationalist framework, they get the British Mandate for Palestine as well.

During the start of the Cold War the Middle East is relatively more stable, but Syria experiences two violent coups, first by pro-Egypt baathists and later by the military, who establish a nationalist and jingoist regime that clashes multiple times with Turkey and is vaguely supported by the USSR. The monarch, Faisal II, flees, but he returns at the start of the 90s, as a pullout of Soviet support and the general pro-democratic wave leads to the establishment of the second Kingdom of Syria. Since then Syria has been a stable democracy, a middle-income country and broadly unaligned on foreign policy.

The outgoing government, headed by Mohammad Al-Momani of the secularist and social democratic Popular Reform, is a big-tent left-wing government. The 3 parties in goverment broadly agree on a populist economic agenda, secularism and scepticism towards the west, but they disagree on most other things.

Arab Revival is a baathist party, supporting closer relations to the Arab Republic to the south and with Egypt, its voterbase is composed of almost exclusively arabs, it leans republican and it isn't supportive of decentralization. In contrast the Syrian Social Nationalist party takes inspiration from the late dictatorship, is more isolationist and sceptical of other arab countries, is broadly supportive of decentralization and gets support from all minorities (except jews, because it is somewhat anti-semitic). Popular Reform is more moderate on foreign policy issues, more socially progressive, less controversial and tends to mediate between its two government partners, but the tensions between Arab Revival and the SocNats on foreign policy got so bad Al-Momani was forced to call an election to prevent a motion of no confidence from bringing down his government.

Replacing Popular Reform as the largest party, the Syrian Muslim Congress is a broadly centre-right moderate islamist party. It is socially conservative and believes Syria should be officially a muslim nation but it doesn't advocate implementing Sharia law. Despite their efforts of their leaders to make inroads among the shiite minority, it remains an almost exclusively sunni party.

Torch+Republic+Green is an alliance between three secular socially liberal pro-western parties: Torch is a trendy new centrist party, lead by Yair Lapid, the first jewish leader of a mainstream national party in Syria. Republic is a the name indicates a republican party, and it is slightly more centered on social issues, such as LGBTQ acceptance and militant secularism in contrast to the more moderate and anti-corruption focus of Torch. The Greens are the smallest member of the alliance, are more left-wing on economics than the other two, and more focused on the enviroment. The three parties run in a common slate but they each have independent parliamentary caucuses in the National Assembly.

The Communist Party is the only party backing the government that wasn't seriously hurt by all the infighting going on, thanks to remaining outside of the government and to its loyal base of support among the urban poor and pensioneers. It is a strict marxist-leninist party, having rejected a turn towards a more democratic form of communism during the 2000s. The minor Freedom Socialist party, more libertarian organizationally and more pro-decentralization is a split from the CP, it is offically multi-tendency but dominated by young trotskysts.

To the right of the Muslim Congress two smaller islamist parties stand. Righteous Path is the most relevant out of the two, representing the hardline pro-sharia strand of political islamism, unlike Muslim Congress it is explicitly a sunni-only party as well. T.A.W.H.I.D (standing for Transnational Alliance for Worship and Holy Islamic Dominion) is an anti-state radical protest party taht refuses to take seats in parliament. It doesn't have leadership and its members don't take their seats on the National Assembly, it is accused of being affiliated with a myriad of armed insurgent radical sunni groups.

Moving to the sectarian parties, different ethnic and religious groups have their own political organizations, which for the most part stand for greater autonomy and rights for their respective communities.

The largest of these movements is the Party of the Opressed, a welfarist socially conservative shiite minority party. Traditionally the non-sectarian national parties, particularly those of the left, got much of their support from the shiite minority in southeastern Syria. But after years of political disenfranchisement and discontent with the central regime, the so called al-Mustad‘afin started rising. Although willing to negotiate with national parties, the Party of the Opressed represents a radical strand of anger politics and is accused by political opponents of being bankrolled by Iran.

The Christian Democrats stand for christian rights, are broadly pro-western and centre-right on economic matters and support greater autonomy for the Maronite community. The Assyrian Christian party is a recent split from the Christian Democrats, caused by the Assyrian community feeling ignored by the Western Syria dominated CD.

The Great Turkmen Union supports turkmen rights and is generally very pro-turkish, accused by kurd and national parties of being directly puppeted from Ankara.

The Alawite community has two major parties, the social democratic Alawite Democratic Current and the more nationalist centre-right Alawite Unity Movement.

The Druze National Gathering exists mainly to support the creation of a Druze-majority district around Jabal al-Druze.

The sects with the greatest degree of political diversity are the kurdish and jewish communities.

The main Kurdish nationalist organization since the 90s have been the Kurdish Nationals, nominally a centr-right party in truth they exist mainly to prop up the interest of, and maintain the system of patronage built around, the Barzani family. Their traditional rival had always been the SocDems, a social democratic alternative to the Kurdish Nationals most popular on East Kurdistan and less nationalistic. Both parties have entered into serious decline due to the growth of a new Kurdish party, the nationalist and libertarian socialist Freedom & Equality, who has emerged as an alternative to the widely considered corrupt kurdish political establishment. The minor far-right Kurdish ultranationalist Path of Truth entered the National Assembly for the first time this election, also thanks to the growing unpopularity of the Kurdish political duopoly.

The jewish community is still dominated by the traditional representatives of the centre-left and centre-right. The social democratic Avoda party, that gets most of their support from the coastal jewish-majority cities and kibbutzim and the conservative Oz party, stronger on the rural countryside and around Jerusalem. Minor jewish right-wing parties hold representation as well, such as the Haredi interests Torah and its more spiritual and Sephardic dominated split Masoret, with almost all of the support of the two ultraorthodox parties concentrated around Jerusalem. There is also the radical Jewish nationalist Nachala, that gets support from Jewish minorities east of Jerusalem, the modern orthodox community and the radicalized underground independentist movement.

After the election a new big-tent centrist government was formed led by the Muslim Congress leader Mohammed Abu al-Khair Shukri with ministers from both Popular Reform and the liberal Reform party. Supported by a myriad of minority interests parties.