by Jocelyne Zablit
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BEIRUT, May 28, 2008 (AFP) - Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, who is set to head the new cabinet under new President Michel Sleiman, spent much of his first term in office embroiled in a face-off with the Hezbollah-led opposition.
Described as "tough" and a "good guy" by US President George W. Bush but a US puppet by his foes, Siniora managed to survive a tumultuous three years in office despite being effectively confined to his Beirut headquarters by an opposition protest.
He has been heading a caretaker government since Sleiman's election on Sunday.
He told AFP in an interview at the weekend he was ready to bow out of politics but would stay on if asked by the ruling bloc.
"I served for three years and I believe it is somehow time for a change," he said. "I've had enough, it's time for me to go and seek other matters that have to do with public affairs."
Siniora, 64, oversaw the huge banking interests of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri -- and ran the nation's finances in all five governments led by the late tycoon -- before Hariri was killed in a February 2005 bomb blast on the Beirut seafront.
He was then thrust into the political limelight by Hariri's son and political heir Saad Hariri, who first nominated him as premier.
Since then he has held on to the reins despite a blistering war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006, a string of attacks on anti-Syrian critics, a deadly standoff with Islamist militiamen and a paralysing political feud.
But his biggest challenge came earlier this month when Hezbollah staged a brazen takeover of mainly Sunni west Beirut after the government adopted measures against the Shiite Muslim militant group that were eventually rescinded.
Siniora, who enjoys the backing of Sunni-ruled Arab states such as regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia as well as the West, has largely kept a statesmanlike calm in the rough and tumble of Lebanon's divisive politics and sectarian unrest.
He spent the past 18 months largely confined to his headquarters in downtown Beirut, where Hezbollah and its allies had set up a tent city that paralyzed downtown Beirut since late 2006.
"You know it's all in the head and up here I didn't feel besieged," Siniora told AFP last week.
Hezbollah lifted the sit-in after a deal brokered in the Qatari capital last week that gave the opposition veto power over key decision in the new cabinet.
Siniora formed his first cabinet in July 2005 after anti-Syrian MPs swept legislative polls that later saw politicians from the Damascus- and Tehran backed Hezbollah take a seat in the cabinet for the first time.
But he faced an uphill battle against the opposition, which pulled out its ministers in November 2006 in a move that set off the latest political crisis.
Hezbollah gained ground after its 34-day war with Israel in which 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, were killed.
Siniora broke down in tears as he appealed to Arab foreign ministers not to allow his country to remain a "punch bag" for Israel. The episode became a character-revealing moment for his Shiite and Christian detractors who accused him of not standing up to Israeli aggression.
The latest confrontation erupted when the government decided to probe Hezbollah's communication network and to reassign the head of airport security over claims he was close to the group.
Siniora has also angered the pro-Syrian opposition over the government's backing of the creation of an international court to try suspects into Hariri's murder.
A fluent English-speaker and workaholic by his own admission, Siniora served as finance minister under Hariri. He was a friend of the late tycoon for some 45 years, benefiting from his meteoric rise from rags to riches.
Critics have blamed him for the 41-billion-dollar debt Lebanon built up during his terms of office between 1992 and 1998, and 2000 and 2004. He was also accused of mismanagement, corruption and wasting public funds in 1998 but was later acquitted by parliament.
Born into a Sunni Muslim family in the southern port city of Sidon, Siniora is married with three grown children and is a practising Muslim. A devotee of Arabic literature, he writes poetry and is a fan of classical music.
bur-jz/txw
Lebanon-politics-Siniora
