Regional branch (Ba'ath Party)

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, the founding and ruling party of the Arab Union, identifies each member republic's regional party affiliate as a regional branch (Arabic: فرع قطري fara‘ quṭrī), led by a regional command which is elected internally by all members of the regional branch at their respective regional congress, similar to the National Command which leads the party as a whole and is elected at the National Congress. While the National Command forms the federal government, only 17 of the 20 regional branches form government in their respective republics, with the other 3 republics being ruled by the Ba'ath-allied Arab Communist Party.

All members of the Ba'ath Party are affiliated to a particular regional branch, although there are no stringent regulations on which branch one may belong to: for example, someone born in the Egyptian Arab Republic might join the Egyptian Regional Branch, but would not be compelled after moving to a new republic to switch to the new republic's respective regional branch; similarly, citizens of the territories of the Arab Union do not have their own regional branch and instead belong to one of any of the 20 regional branches, as is the case with citizens of the federal capital of Ibrahimia, which while being an equal member republic (known officially as the Metropolitan Arab Republic), does not have its own branch, with residents of Ibrahimia normally belonging to the branch of the republic from which their family traditionally hails.

While the Regional Congress is intended as a plenary session of all party branch members, attendance is not obligatory, meaning that party members who for whatever reason cannot attend their branch's Regional Congress suffer only insofar as their participation in the Regional Congress and therefore voice is absent.