The Next Prime Minister?

Last February, when former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, his son Saad, 35, was living in Saudi Arabia and working for his father's huge business empire. Now, the younger Hariri has chosen a different path, just as his country is emerging from years of Syrian domination. Today, Lebanon goes to the polls for the first round of this landmark election. Hariri is heading a slate of parliamentary candidates that is expected to win the most votes. The question on everyone's lips here: If his slate wins, will this political novice end up as prime minister or will he choose someone else to run the country while he learns the ropes? Last week, Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth interviewed Hariri in his Beirut office.

Excerpts:

Are you going to become prime minister?

I am going to wait for the elections.

After the elections, are you ready?

I think with the [right] environment [and] the right alliances, I can try to be a prime minister, but we still have some symbols of the past who brought the country so much harm. If we are able to get rid of them after the elections, I would be interested in taking the post.

I assume you are talking about the current president, Emile Lahoud, who is reportedly very close to Syria's President [Bashar] Assad. Are you saying he must go?

I am saying that anybody who protected the security and intelligence forces in the past should not continue in their job, and he is one of them.

Lahoud seems determined to continue.

Everybody is determined to continue. Is he determined to continue in the same way -- where he let the intelligence [apparatus] interfere in every single department or ministry? If this is his determination, nobody wants it.

I asked Lahoud [recently] if the Syrians killed your father. . . .

And what did he answer? I would not want to point a finger until the --