Fares al-Khoury

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Fares al-Khoury (1877-1962) was an Ottoman, then Syrian Arab Christian politician.

He became the Christian member of the Ottoman Parliament representing Damascus in 1908.

He was minister of Finances in the short-lived Hashemite Kingdom of Syria in 1920, then, during the State, then Republic of Syria under French Mandate, he joined Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar [1] in 1925 to found the People's Party, of which he became vice-president. Minister of Education from April to July 1926, he was elected member of the Syrian Constituent Assembly in 1928, then elected to the Syrian Parliament in 1932, reelected in 1936 (and president of the Parliament till 1939) and 1943 (and again president of the Parliament till 1944). He was a member of the Syrian delegation that negotiated the Franco-Syrian Treaty in Paris in 1936.

He became Prime Minister from October 14, 1944 till October 1, 1945, then again president of the parliament till the military coup of Husni al-Za'im who dissolved it in April 1949. After free elections in October 1954, he returned as Prime Minister from October 25, 1954 till February 13, 1955 when his pro-Western governement, hostile to a union with Egypt, was toppled by the parliament.

Fares al-Khoury died in 1962, one year after the dissolution of the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria (1958-1961) during which he was an active political opponent.