Obituary: Rafik al-Hariri

BEIRUT - Rafik al-Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister killed in a massive car bombing on Monday, had a vision when he took power in 1992 of building a prosperous country from the ruins of civil war.

But corruption and mismanagement blurred the dream of the billionaire businessman, killed with at least eight others in the blast which hit his motorcade on Beirut's waterfront.

Despite the many setbacks, Hariri, 60, remained in office for most of the past 12 years before quitting in October 2004 amid a bitter rift with President Emile Lahoud.

Hariri's resignation came as Lebanon appeared to be in real need for his international contacts to deal with a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Syria's military and political roles in Lebanon.

Hariri, political sources say, first contemplated quitting power minutes after he was told by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in August that Damascus wanted to extend the term in office of his rival Lahoud.

Having fallen in and out of favour with Damascus over the years, he had recently joined calls by the opposition for Syrian troops to quit Lebanon in the run-up to a general election in May.

Friction with Lahoud helped chase Hariri from office in 1998 amid accusations he neglected the country's poor. It hobbled the prime minister's efforts to handle Lebanon's debt that exploded during the postwar reconstruction project he spearheaded.

The Sunni Muslim was back in power in 2000 after a landslide election victory as many Lebanese saw no alternative to reversing an economic slide that worsened in his absence.

But optimism about the heavy-set businessman's ability to resurrect Lebanon as a financial and tourism hub was tempered by the mounting number of battles fought with Lahoud loyalists over privatisation and other cost-cutting plans.

When Lebanon faced financial crisis in 2002, Hariri persuaded France to host an international summit of lenders who pledged enough cash to avert a meltdown.

The construction tycoon's ties with European, Asian and Arab leaders helped keep Lebanon out of an abyss of debt run up during efforts to rebuild Beirut, including an expensive downtown area that rose from the ruins to become top-end property hawked by a company Hariri largely owns.

Born to a modest family from the southern port city of Sidon on November 1, 1944, Hariri spent some 20 years in Saudi Arabia, where construction deals made him a fortune that Forbes estimated at US$3.8 billion ($5.38 billion) on its 2003 World's Richest People list.

Businessmen praised him for cutting through a paralysed Lebanese state bureaucracy and rebuilding war-shattered Beirut. But hopes that economic renaissance would flower with a Middle East peace process wilted with it instead.

- REUTERS