November 20, 2008
Lebanon's slain leader's son wins Parliament seat
BEIRUT, Lebanon - In Lebanon's clannish politics, Saad Hariri has one of the most important qualifications to become the country's new prime minister: He's from the right family.
Although he has never held political office, his family has designated him as the political heir to his father, the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Until his killing on Feb. 14, the elder Hariri -- a billionaire construction tycoon -- was the most dominant politician in Lebanon since the early 1990s.
Unlike many other Arab politicians, Hariri did not groom any of his children to succeed him. Saad, 35, the second eldest of Hariri's sons, had spent years preparing to take control of his father's business empire. To his family, he seemed the natural choice to succeed his father politically.
Saad Hariri officially won a seat in the Lebanese parliament Monday, when final results were announced in the first round of legislative elections held Sunday. A slate of Hariri-backed candidates won all 19 parliamentary seats in Beirut, and Hariri's allies are expected to win as many as 20 additional seats when three more rounds of balloting are held across Lebanon over the next three Sundays.
If Hariri's supporters win as many seats as expected, he could control the largest bloc in the 128-member parliament. That would make Hariri a leading candidate for prime minister, even though he would be the youngest and least politically experienced premier in the country's history.
"He's considered a strong candidate for premier because he has a lot of public sympathy generated by his father's assassination," said Hazem Amin, an editor at the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. "He's also expected to continue his father's policies."
In Lebanon, parliament appoints the country's three top officials: the president, who must be a Maronite Christian; the prime minister, who must be a Sunni Muslim; and the speaker of parliament, who must be a Shia Muslim. Saad Hariri is a Sunni, which makes him eligible to become premier.
The young Hariri is a business graduate of Georgetown University, and since 1996, he has managed his father's Saudi Arabia-based construction firm, Saudi Oger. The company has 35,000 employees and $2 billion in annual revenues. Saad Hariri also owns a real estate firm estimated to be worth $145 million.
Family political dynasties are the norm in Lebanon, with leaders usually passing their positions to their eldest sons. But Rafik Hariri was a self-made man who challenged that system and rose to power by using his wealth to finance charities and the education of thousands of Lebanese students. The son of a working-class family, he expressed disdain for those who inherited their political positions.
Some Lebanese see an irony in Saad Hariri's designation as his father's political heir. "No one gave Rafik Hariri his position. He earned it," said Mahmoud Tlass, 34, a Beirut businessman who decided not to vote in Sunday's election. "Lebanon needs to evolve beyond this system of political inheritance."
Others questioned Saad Hariri's use of his father's assassination as a way to win votes. On billboards across Beirut, there were posters of the slain Hariri looming over his son. Another poster urged voters to elect the "slate of the martyred former prime minister."
"Saad Hariri has been carrying the corpse of his father and running with it," said Lokman Slim, a leader of a group called Hayyabina (Arabic for "Let's Go"), which is lobbying to change Lebanon's sectarian political system. "He has no political program of his own."
The younger Hariri acknowledged that he would be the beneficiary of a sympathy vote. "I think I am only a symbol for now," he told Lebanese TV last week. "I need to work hard in the coming years to fill a small part of my father's shoes."
At campaign rallies, Saad Hariri has offered only vague promises. "We stand for change, we stand for a new Lebanon, we stand for an end to corruption," he told supporters last week. He also vowed to continue the massive reconstruction projects that marked his father's tenure.
His most specific pledge is to bring his father's assassins to justice. Rafik Hariri's backers blamed his killing on Syria and its allies in the Lebanese security services, a charge Damascus denied. The assassination prompted international pressure and a wave of popular protests that led to the resignation of the Syrian-backed Lebanese government and to the withdrawal of Syrian troops last month. Syria had kept troops in Lebanon since 1976, a year after the start of a civil war that lasted until 1990.
"The blood of Rafik Hariri will not go in vain," the young Hariri has repeatedly told campaign crowds. "We will find out the truth."
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