MR RAHQ HARIRI, now on his first official visit to Dublin, was appointed Lebanon's prime minister in October 1992. The President, Mr Elias Hrawi, and the powerful business establishment chose him as the man most likely to put the country's economy right after 15 years of civil war.
Mr Hariri is an exceptional a prime minister in many ways. He does not come from a political family or powerful clan and does not play politics by the traditional rules of the Levant.
He sees himself as someone quite "different" from his predecessors because he has taken on the exceptional task of rebuilding his country. Once he completes this task he says he will step down. This, too, is an unusual attitude for any politician to take particularly in a country were politicians stay in office till they drop. But then Mr Hariri has an exceptional history.
He was born in 1944 into a poor Sunni Muslim family living in the southern port of Sidon. He completed elementary and secondary schooling, and enrolled in 1965 in the business faculty at the Beirut Arab University. But after only one year at the university, he decided to take the route so many young Lebanese have followed to make their fortunes. He went to Saudi Arabia.
He began modestly enough with a teaching job in Jeddah, then shifted to employment in a construction firm. He had found his metier. In 1970 he established his own company and soon became the chief contractor for Prince Fahd, the present king. Mr Hariri's business thrived he diversified into banking, insurance, light engineering, computers and advertising, amassing a fortune estimated at $4 billion.
Civil warfare did not prevent him from establishing a branch of his construction company in Beirut, or from building a modern hospital in his home town or funding scholarships for needy students, particularly Shias from the south.
Mr Hariri became Lebanon's Lord Bountiful. During Israel's siege of Beirut in 1982 he offered the services of his firms to repair power lines and provide sustenance to the citizens of the capital. In 1983 he began the reconstruction of the commercial heart of the city, but his efforts were destroyed when fighting resumed.
Mr Hariri took part in the National Reconciliation Conferfences in Geneva in 1983 and 1984 and became involved in the monumental job of reconstruction in 1990 once the war had finally ended.
Mr Hariri became Lebanon's most powerful prime minister when he assumed and exercised the considerable executive authority granted his office by the
1989 Taif accords which reformed the country's political system. He has, however, antagonised many of Lebanon's factional interests by denying them positions in his cabinet and choosing instead businessmen and financial managers who can get out with the work of rebuilding.
He has personally raised many of the millions of dollars Lebanon needs to accomplish this task. Mr Hariri has the support of Syria ash well as of Saudi Arabia and, exceptionally, enjoys good relations with all the other Arab leaders.
