A great survivor

Layal Abou Rahal -

Famous for his quick wit and shrewd politicking, Hizbullah ally Nabih Berri is returning for a sixth consecutive term as speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, making him one of the world’s longest-serving legislative chiefs. At 80 years old, he is one of the great survivors of the country’s complex political scene, which he has expertly navigated as head of parliament for the last 26 years.

In a confessional system where the speaker’s post is reserved, Berri has become one of his community’s most successful leaders.

He won another four-year session practically unchallenged on Wednesday, winning votes from 98 of parliament’s 128 members at their inaugural session. The tall, light-eyed politician heads the Amal Movement and is a close ally of Hizbullah.

Together, the two parties hold all but one of the 27 seats in Lebanon’s parliament. A lawyer by training, Berri won power as a militia leader during the 1975-1990 civil war and transitioned to politics as the war ended. His career since has mirrored the community’s steadily rising clout in a country where it had long been marginalised both economically and politically.

He has nimbly navigated shifting tides over the past three decades to seal both his popularity in the community and his grip on the post of speaker. Even as he fashioned himself into a mediator among Lebanon’s deeply divided political factions, he has remained firmly allied to Hizbullah. That partnership is likely to remain intact.

In an interview shortly after this month’s election, Berri said the triumvirate of “the army, the people, the resistance (Hizbullah)” was key to keeping Lebanon safe.

Like many Lebanese from the south, Berri’s parents moved to Africa to make a better living. He was born on January 28, 1938, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He earned a law degree from the state-run Lebanese University in 1963 before completing post-graduate law studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. During Lebanon’s war, he rose to prominence by taking over the leadership of the Amal movement in 1980, two years after the mysterious disappearance in Libya of its founder, Imam Mussa Sadr. In 1984, he led his militiamen in an uprising against the US- and Israeli-backed regime of president Amin Gemayel. Between 1985 and 1988, he helped crush supporters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the so-called “war of the camps”.

In 1988, his militia fought a deadly power struggle with Hizbullah, which took control of almost all the southern suburbs of Beirut and swathes of Lebanon’s south. — AFP