There has been speculation in recent days about whether the political career of Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, is over. One noted commentator, admittedly a longstanding critic, agreed with the idea that Berri’s time “has ended in the politics of Lebanon.” It’s always best not to write off the cunning Berri, but it is certainly true that, at 85, the speaker has limited future prospects.
The rap sheet against Berri is that he has faltered several times in the past year, showing that his power is waning. He was reelected speaker of parliament by the barest of margins, 65 votes, after parliamentary elections last year. He has failed to lead parliament in the search for a compromise candidate as president since Michel Aoun left office last October. When he tried to organize a dialogue on the presidency, two leading Christian parties rejected the move. Worse, the candidate Berri supports, Suleiman Franjieh, is roundly opposed by all major Christian parties, and his chances of being elected appear to have stalled. It was also Berri who last week tried to impose that Lebanon delay the change to summer time, a move that caused chaos and recrimination, forcing Berri and the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, to backtrack in a humiliating way.
More broadly, Berri is widely perceived as one of Lebanon’s more venal politicians. A beach facility in Tyre allegedly owned by his wife was one of the first places to be burned by angry Shia demonstrators during the protests of October 2019. In recent days, there were rumors that a project to enlarge the airport was connected to someone close to Berri, even though there was no evidence of this being true. By law, the project should have been submitted through a competitive bid, but this step was never taken, provoking pushback from civil society organizations. Nor was the project sent to the director of the authority that oversees public contracts, Jean Ellieh, a delay that was itself suspicious. It was no less suspect that Ellieh was invited in by Berri on March 29 for a discussion. However, in the face of rising outrage, the minister of public works finally scrapped the project on March 30.
The reality is that Berri’s reputation is such that whatever he does often raises doubts. He has headed parliament since 1992, and time and again during the turbulent period after the assassination of the former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, the speaker managed to reinvent himself and reinforce his position in the volatile political system. Even when Aoun was elected president and Berri was forced to deal with a man he considers a political enemy, the speaker gradually marginalized the president and his son in law Gebran Bassil. But today, the primary question is whether Berri still has anything to offer the Lebanese.
For many Lebanese, Berri represents only a prolongation of their suffering. They can see that he offers them no way out of their country’s catastrophe—indeed he rejects such a possibility if it weakens him, fighting it tooth and nail. Berri comes across as one of those Eastern European leaders on the eve of the collapse of communism—calcified by their years in power, incapable of new beginnings while all around them a changing world was becoming impatient with their obstinacy. For a man of Berri’s political litheness, such an impression can be fatal.
Unlike several other political leaders, namely Aoun and Berri’s old partner, the Druze leader Walid Joumblatt, the speaker has no succession plans. None of his sons or political intimates are expected to inherit his position, so that Berri’s power will evaporate with him. Who will secure the leadership of Berri’s Amal Movement once he’s gone also remains unclear, given that in 2020 the United States sanctioned one of those people closest to the speaker, the former minister Ali Hassan al-Khalil. If anything, Berri realizes that these uncertainties over his succession mean that all the cards will remain in the hands of Hezbollah, in whose shadow an uneasy Berri has had to maneuver since the Syrian military withdrawal in 2005.
If indeed Berri is on a downward slope, what might this mean for Lebanon? The speaker has been one of the principal purveyors of the stalemate that has engulfed the country since the financial breakdown of 2019. He continues to defend those who have most resisted the implementation of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) reform plan. For Lebanon’s politicians, any such plan threatens their power base and financial and patronage networks (ironically, even as these collapse because of a lack of reform). That is why the speaker has bolstered another discreet opponent of the IMF plan, the central bank governor Riad Salameh. Berri has gone so far as to suggest indirectly, through the finance minister he appointed, that it will be difficult to replace Salameh once his term ends in July.
However, anyone who has eyes to see must realize that maintaining Salameh in place will be almost impossible. Not only is the governor being investigated in Lebanon and several European countries for money laundering and embezzlement, but keeping him in office would be a clear signal that the Lebanese authorities have no intention of carrying out the IMF reforms to which they agreed almost a year ago. While that may indeed be the intention of members of the political-financial class, the Lebanese authorities are still trying to keep alive the illusion internationally that they are serious about fulfilling the IMF’s conditions.
Even domestically, Berri’s latitude to secure an extension for Salameh is limited. In an interview with Al-Akhbar in February, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, said the party was “absolutely not” in favor of such an option. The Aounists will surely oppose it too, while few other parties appear willing to go to the line for the central bank governor. Even Salameh himself, sensing the shifting winds, has declared that he would leave office on time.
Berri’s choice of Franjieh for the presidency again reflected his opposition to real change. No one believes Franjieh has a profile that would reassure an international community pushing hard for reforms. Some have suggested that Hezbollah’s endorsement of Franjieh in early March was more a Berri initiative with which the party agreed, than one it intended to advance by asking its allies to rally around the candidate and promise him votes. That could be true, but, if so, it only set Berri up as a target by making it seem that he was appropriating the powers to pick a Maronite president against much of Maronite Christian public opinion.
Once a new president is elected, one of the first things he will need to do is appoint Salameh’s replacement. That choice will be crucial for Lebanon’s international credibility. It will show whether a new president really intends to lead the country out of its financial and economic morass, after three years during which the political class has done nothing to advance a reform program. In fact, an IMF team was in Beirut last week and said as much, albeit in more diplomatic language.
What will Berri’s options be in such a case? He knows there is nothing to prevent the Lebanese pound from continuing to depreciate, as foreign currency reserves at the central bank dwindle. This will disproportionately harm Berri’s base among public-sector employees, whose salaries are already worth nothing today. The strategy of the political class is to buy time and hope that outside funding comes in, but this approach is demonstrably absurd. The banking sector is on life support while bank owners continue to resist a restructuring of the sector because it might mean they lose control of their banks. The current policy of neglect and the “deliberate depression” Lebanon is allowing today will only lead to what the IMF official Ernesto Rigo described as a “never-ending crisis.”
That is why we can reach a simple conclusion amid all the statements on Berri’s political decline. No one will regret it if the speaker’s ability to be an obstacle to change is eroded. No one will drag him back from retirement, if it ever comes to that. While Berri is hardly alone in defending a murderous status quo in which most people are losing everything, to many Lebanese he is part of the problem, not the solution. That Berri has refused to respond to this situation is surprising, given his political flair. But flair means little when it’s at the service of immobility.
