Arab Union

The Union of Arab Republics (UAR; Arabic: إتِّحاد الجمهوريات العربية ittiḥād al-jumhūriyāt al-‘arabīyah), informally known as the Arab Union (الإتِّحاد العربي al-ittiḥād al-‘arabī), is a socialist state in North Africa and Western Asia. It is governed as a federation of 20 Arab republics, and 21 insular territories. The Arab Union covers a vast, environmentally and culturally diverse landscape of almost 11.9 million square kilometres, making it the second-largest country in the world by land area, and with a population of over 455 million in 2018, it is the third-most populous country in the world, after China and India. Arabic serves as the official language of the union and its 20 republics, many of which also recognise other languages at the regional level. The Arab Union is home to a majority of sites considered holy by the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, making it a central destination for both religious pilgrimage and tourism, and hosts multiple important and protected archeological areas as well as 85 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The Arab Union was established in the wake of the Arab Revolution, which lasted from 1989 to 1994 and entailed a protracted armed conflict between the pan-Arabist forces of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and a coalition of nationalist and Islamist forces in the multiple formerly sovereign Arab states. Emerging victorious, the Ba'athists consolidated their control over the Arab states which were each declared Arab republics, and which formally united in 1996 to form the Union of Arab Republics, each republic's Ba'athist government placing itself under a new federal administration. The period of postwar reconstruction across the new union was mostly finished by the start of the new millennium, which gave way to an exponential increase in economic integration among the Arab states as well as a marked self-realisation of military power with the unification of each republic's armed forces under the Arab Union Armed Forces, paving the way for the union's contemporary status as a potential superpower.

Politics
There are two main centres of political power in the Arab Union: the government of the Arab Union, represented by the Arab Congress which elects the Presidium and the Council of Ministers; and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, the founding and ruling political party of the Arab Union and the only party constitutionally permitted to form government.

Ba'ath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in 1947 in Damascus as a pan-Arabist movement seeking the establishment of a unified Arab state. The Ba'athists became the leading faction of the Pan-Arab Army during the 1990–1994 Arab Revolution, a large-scale armed conflict in most of the formerly independent Arab states, which resulted in the consolidation of Ba'athist hegemony over the Arab world and the subsequent establishment in 1996 of the Arab Union as a federation of the Ba'ath-controlled Arab republics. Since the union's establishment, this Ba'ath Party has been the sole ruling political party, with this role confirmed in the 1999 constitution which laid the groundwork for the development of the union's contemporary political system. The constitution permits nine other political parties to exist, all of which are social democratic or other leftist parties officially allies to the Ba'ath Party as part of the National Progressive Front (NPF), a united front led by the Ba'athists which hold a majority of seats in both chambers of the Arab Congress. Opposition parties are permitted to exist and contest legislative elections, but anti-federalist and nationalist parties as well as Islamist and other extremist parties are banned from partaking in federal or republican politics.

The highest organ of the Ba'ath Party is the National Congress, which is held every three years as a plenary meeting of the 20 regional branches' Regional Secretaries and their deputies (who are elected by their respective Regional Congress). The National Congress elects the National Command, which is officially the highest authority in the party between sessions of the National Congress. The National Congress also elects a National Secretary to lead the National Command, whose actions are accountable to the party as a whole at subsequent National Congress sessions.

Government
According to the 1999 constitution, the highest institution of state power is the Arab Congress, the federal legislative assembly which consists of two nominally equal chambers: the Congress of Deputies, the "lower house", consists of 1055 seats each representing a single electoral district of roughly 330,000 people; while the Congress of Republics, the "upper house", consists of 660 seats, 33 for each of the 20 constituent Arab republics regardless of population.

The two chambers of the Arab Congress together elect the Presidium of the Arab Congress in a plenary session; the Presidium is a fifteen-member committee which constitutionally serves as the collective head of state of the Arab Union, and which also acts as the highest legislative authority between plenary sessions of the Arab Congress.

The Arab Congress also elects the Council of Ministers, the top executive authority of the Arab Union, which oversees multiple federal and republican ministries as well as executive state committees. The Council of Ministers itself elects a chairperson, who is subsequently declared Prime Minister (head of government) of the Arab Union.