Ammon News - BEIRUT (AFP) - Saad Hariri, the son and annointed heir of murdered former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, was at one time more at ease in the world of business than the rough-and-tumble of Middle Eastern politics.
But his father's killing in a 2005 bomb blast propelled the 39-year-old tycoon to centre stage in the anti-Syrian opposition. He now has two election victories under his belt and is being tipped as a possible premier himself.
The Saudi-born Saad initially attributed his political success to the sympathy vote for his popular billionaire father, a Sunni Muslim who founded the moderate Future movement that his son now leads.
"I think I am merely a symbol for now. I need to work hard the coming four years to... fill a little bit my father's shoes," he said after his initial election win in 2005.
On Sunday, his Western-backed coalition known as March 14 — after the date of a mass rally staged to call for Syria's withdrawal in the public outcry that followed Hariri's murder — claimed victory again.
"I think he will be the next prime minister. He is much more experienced than in 2005. He has proven he is quite capable. He won an election, met many difficult challenges and worked in politics for four straight years," Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Centre, told AFP.
Hariri's Western-backed coalition — which held the majority in the outgoing parliament — is expected to win 71 seats in the new 128-seat assembly, according to his own media.
Already a success of his own in the business world, Saad was chosen to continue the "national and political mission" of his billionaire father, who was credited with rebuilding Lebanon after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
Forbes magazine put Saad Hariri's net worth at 1.4 billion dollars in its 2009 list of the world's billionaires, down from 3.3 billion last year.
Sources close to the Hariri family say they tapped Saad for a political role because he has more charisma and is better at interacting with people than his eldest brother, Bahaa.
Hariri himself has so far refused to comment on whether he would agree to lead the new government, saying before Sunday's vote that it was too early to broach the subject.
Hariri is a business graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, and heads his father's Saudi-based construction firm, Saudi Oger, one of the largest companies in the Middle East which employs around 35,000 people.
The Hariri empire, which has been managed by Saad since 1996, also spans banking, real estate and media through companies such as Saudi Investment Bank, Saudi Research and Marketing Group and Future Television.
He also has his own real estate company. Saad was born in April 1970, Rafiq Hariri's second son by his first Iraqi wife. He is now himself married with two children. His
wife, Lara Bashir Al-Adem, hails from a prestigious Syrian family.
Lebanon's Daily Star once labelled him an "unlikely" candidate whose "inexperience in walking the crooked paths of the Lebanese political environment is not a detriment but rather an asset."