Fouad Siniora
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| Fouad Siniora | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office July 19, 2005 |
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| Deputy | Elias Murr |
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| Preceded by | Najib Mikati |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent |
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| Born | 1943 Sidon, Lebanon |
| Political party | Current for the Future |
| Spouse | Huda, three children: Wael, May and Rina |
Fouad Siniora (alternative spellings: Fouad Sanyoura, Fuad Siniora, Fouad Saniora, Fouad Seniora) (Arabic: فؤاد السنيورة, Fu'ād As-Sanyūrah) is the Prime Minister of Lebanon, a position he assumed on 19 July 2005, succeeding Najib Mikati.
Born into a Sunni Muslim family in Sidon in 1943, Siniora was a friend of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri for more than 45 years. A business graduate of the American University of Beirut, Siniora was Minister of Finance for most of the post-war period in Lebanon. After working for Citibank and teaching at his alma mater in Beirut in the 1970s, Siniora worked for the Central Bank's audit committee before being employed by Hariri in 1982 in his rapidly growing business empire. He held various positions in Hariri's business enterprises.
Fouad Siniora has strong ties with international finance. Strongly pro-business, he is considered a partisan of free trade. He was a close adviser to late Rafik Hariri and he is very close to his son Saad Hariri. He served as finance minister from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 to 2004. Siniora was the main designer of the Paris II conference in November 2002 which allowed Lebanon to get US$2.6 billion. He was accused of corruption and mismanagement after Hariri's ousting in 1998, in what was mainly viewed as a conflict between Hariri and President Émile Lahoud. Siniora was cleared of all charges in 2003 by the parliament. In 2002, he abolished most of Lebanon's duty taxes and introduced a Value Added Tax. It was under his rule that Lebanon's public debt exploded, although his responsibility for that is disputed.
After the victory of the anti-Syrian opposition in parliamentary elections held in May and June 2005, Fouad Siniora was asked by President Lahoud on 30 June to form a government. He resigned from the chairmanship of Group Méditerranée (a banking holding controlled by the Hariri family). After laborious negotiations with the President and the different political forces, Siniora formed a government on July 19, 2005. It is the first government formed after the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and the first government to include members of Hezbollah. With regards to Hezbollah, the Siniora cabinet´s official stance is that "The government considers the resistance a natural and honest expression of the Lebanese people’s national rights to liberate their land and defend their honour against Israeli aggression and threats". On the other hand, the Siniora cabinet has also been working alongside the March 14 Alliance towards a peaceful disarmement of the Hezbollah military wing through an internal political process. Apart from General Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, all mainstream political currents are represented.
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Note: as of early December, 2006 Hezbollah and the Amal movement, both major Shi'a parties, left the government. As a result there are no Shi'a minsters left in the Cabinet and fewer mainstream parties are represented.
In April, 2006, Siniora and leading officials paid a high profile visit to Washington, DC, and met with President George W. Bush and a number of cabinet members of the Bush Administration. His public pronouncements have been relatively mute with regard to Syria's alleged involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri in 2005.
On 27 July 2006, Siniora presented the 7-point Siniora Plan at a 15-nation conference in Rome as a solution to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. He famously lost control and sobbed for a few seconds during his address to Arab League diplomats in Beirut during the July 2006 war as he described the fate of civilians in Southern Lebanon --then rapidly regained his composure after a standing ovation. [1] [2]
On 12th August, he cautiously welcomed a new UN agreement, as voted for by the UN security council.
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| Preceded by: Najib Mikati |
Prime Minister of Lebanon 2005— |
Succeeded by: incumbent |
