BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim politician Nabih Berri was reelected parliament speaker on Tuesday, extending his tenure in a post he has held since 1992.
Here is some background on his career:
CIVIL WAR
Berri, 84, has been head of the Shi’ite Amal Movement since 1980. Throughout Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, he led Amal through battles with many of the conflict’s other main parties. He rose to international prominence in 1985 when he helped negotiate the release of 39 Americans held hostage in Beirut by Shi’ite militants who hijacked a TWA airliner.
HEZBOLLAH ALLY
He emerged from the war as one of Lebanon’s most powerful leaders, his influence underpinned by close ties to Damascus – which dominated Beirut from 1990 to 2005 – and to the heavily armed, Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah.
Berri has moved in political lockstep with Hezbollah for years and supports its possession of arms. Amal and Hezbollah dominate Shi’ite representation in Lebanon’s sectarian system, in which state posts are divided among confessional groups.
CLOUT IN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
He has exercised significant influence over the financial policies of a state in economic crisis since 2019 – the result of decades of state corruption and mismanagement. His right-hand-man Ali Hassan Khalil was finance minister from 2014 until 2020, and Berri had a decisive say over the choice of Khalil’s two successors since then.
Berri supported Lebanon’s decision to default on its sovereign debt in 2020, and has backed veteran central bank governor Riad Salameh, who has come under fire over the crisis.
Amal was one of several factions that torpedoed a financial recovery plan drawn up by government in 2020. Its ministers also voted against the cabinet’s recovery roadmap in May 2022, although it passed.
SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION
His supporters in the Shi’ite community credit him with helping to improve their standing in a system that had been skewed in favour of other groups after independence in 1943.
But along with other Lebanese leaders, Berri was a focal point of protester anger during unprecedented, nationwide demonstrations in 2019, reflecting widespread outrage at corruption, sectarianism and bad governance.
NO SUCCESSOR
Born in 1938 in Sierra Leone to an emigrant merchant family from south Lebanon, he was raised in Lebanon and was active in politics by the time he was in university. He divorced his first wife, Laila, during the war and his second wife, Randa, became a public figure. He has had 10 children in total, but has broken with Lebanon’s tradition of dynastic politics by not appointing any of them as his political successor.
(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Maya Gebeily and Raissa Kasolowsky)