Ya Fouadi

Will the real Fouad Seniora please stand up?

If watching Fouad Seniora lately makes you feel that something is wrong, you’re not alone. A lot of Hariri fans are surprised at how well he appears to be getting along with the President, the same person who made life hell for his best friend, martyr Hariri.
Not only does Seniora keep his smiles everytime he sees the president, but he’s also making deals with him, speaking of great cooperation with him, and to top it all, he wore a sparkling clear suit for yesterday’s picture despite the fact that the PSP people wore black in “mourning for the Martyr Hariri and others”.
What’s going on? Did Seniora forget his best friend?

The answer to that question tells us a lot about our new prime minister, who in fact, is doing precisely what Rafik Hariri would have done if he were in his shoes.

Fouad Seniora was at one point the most hated person in Lebanon. He was the finance minister in a time where taxes were being raised. To a lot of people, he was a heartless penny gatherer. To them, seeing him smile with Lahhoud makes perfect sense: he’s doing what he does best: Deals. He doesn’t care about people, just about GDP. “We are not homo-economicus, we have feelings” French socialists would shout in his face. But is that a fair assessment of Seniora?

Granted this 62 year old business man has made a fortune out of shrewdness and cunning; The effect of Bell’s Palsy on his mouth has made a lot of people assume it’s the result of his abuse of expensive cigars. But behind all of that, Seniora is a very sensitive person. Just in case you don’t know, he’s a poet and he loves the arts.
When I saw him speak in AUB’s memorial of Hariri, I couldn’t help but notice when he paused in mid-speech to shed a long sincere tear. He had just mentioned a personal anecdote about him and Hariri, after having described how Hariri has been continuously molested by the “security regime”.

So make no mistake about it, Seniora doesn’t have a single doubt who was behind Hariri’s killing, which brings us to another aspect of his personality: patient pragmatism.

A few days had passed after the murder of Rafik Hariri and president Lahhoud was in Quoraitem to give his condolences. Saad Hariri couldn’t look into Lahhoud’s face. Seniora however spent his time with the president, entertained him and showed him around the palace. Seniora knew that one day Lahhoud will be useful and that he shouldn’t be antagonized. He assessed early on the president’s obstinacy and decided that the best way to deal with him is to charm him into concession; an approach that worked well in the formation of the government.

It remains to be seen whether this approach will translate into more results with President Lahhoud. But the Seniora carrot could always be buttressed by the Saad and Jumblat sticks. This is why President Lahhoud prefers dealing with the mask, not with the actual face.