Mahmoud Al-Zoubi (; 1935 – 21 May 2000) was Prime Minister of Syria from 1 November 1987 to 7 March 2000. Early life Al-Zoubi was born into a Sunni family in 1935 in Khirbet Ghazaleh, a village 75 miles south of Damascus in the Hauran region. Prime Minister of Syria Al-Zoubi was a member of the Ba'ath Party. Under the rule of then President Hafez Assad, Al-Zoubi was appointed Prime Minister in 1987. He presided over a ramshackle purportedly socialist governmental and economic system. Military and government officials exercised immense power and continue to do so. Only oil revenues kept the economy going. Even foreign aid programmes struggled to implement under the weight of bureaucratic obduracy. Ubiquitous regulations including price-control had the effect most observers say of stifling legitimate enterprise. Many officials are forced into corruption to supplement meager salaries. It is said that corruption extended all the way to the top Syria's government. When President Hafez Assad was showing signs of poor health in the late 1990s, supporters of his son Bashar Assad started positioning him to succeed him as President. Hafez was also a major player in these maneuverings. Syria is a republic where there was no direct transfer of power envisaged in the constitution from father to son. As Hafez Assad grew sick, it became clear both father and son had decided that Al-Zoubi's days were numbered. Tackling corruption is a popular cause among most Syrians, who see the immense wealth created at their expense as a reason why the Syrian economy has struggled to grow. The dragging down of once swaggering officials, with punishments including jail and the confiscation and auction of their illegally obtained assets earned Bashar much kudos in the community. On 7 March 2000, Al-Zoubi was replaced as prime minister by Mohammed Mustafa Mero. Currency crisis During 1985-2000, Al-Zoubi's administration failed to arrest the 90 per cent fall in the worth of the Syrian Pound from 3 to 47 to the US Dollar. Downfall and the Airbus deal controversy On 10 May 2000, Hafez Assad expelled Al-Zoubi from the Ba'ath Party and decided that Al-Zoubi should be prosecuted over a scandal involving the French aircraft manufacturer Airbus. Al-Zoubi's assets were frozen by the Syrian government. Al-Zoubi and several senior ministers were officially accused of receiving illegal commissions of the order of US$124 million in relation to the purchase of six Airbus 320-200 passenger