Former Lebanese Parliament Speaker Hussein Al-Husseini died on Wednesday at the age of 86, after a political career marked by several stations, most notably his pioneering role in the Taif Agreement, which ended 15 years of civil war in Lebanon.
And the official National News Agency reported that Al-Husseini died on Wednesday morning, “as a result of suffering from an acute flu that required his transfer to the intensive care room” eight days ago.
Al-Husseini was elected MP for the Baalbek-Hermel constituency in the Bekaa region (east) for five consecutive terms, the first in 1972 until his resignation from Parliament in 2008 amid a deep political division that led to institutional paralysis in Lebanon. In 2018, he announced his reluctance to run for parliamentary elections, which practically marked the end of his political career.
He headed Parliament during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) between 1984 and 1992.
In 1989, he played a key role in reaching the Taif Agreement that ended the civil war. Many see him as the “godfather” of the Taif Accord and the most prominent advocate of completing its implementation. He has repeatedly stated that he keeps the minutes of the sessions held in the Saudi city of Taif, and their content remains confidential.
Al-Husseini is known for his sobriety, diplomacy, moderation of his positions, and his distance from the contradictions that have characterized the political scene in Lebanon since the end of the civil war, and were repeatedly reflected in the paralysis of institutions and government work.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati al-Husseini mourned. And he announced in a note of official mourning for a period of three days, starting today, Wednesday.
Mikati said in a statement that Al-Husseini’s “pioneering role in the era of the Taef Accord Conference had a great merit in approving the national reconciliation document that ended the Lebanese war.”
He added, “He knew, with his patriotic sense and deep awareness of Lebanon’s specificity and role, how to secure Lebanese balances at the heart of constitutional reforms that constitute a guarantee of stability in Lebanon.”
During his political career, al-Husayni co-founded the Lebanese Resistance Regiments Movement (Amal) alongside Imam Musa al-Sadr. Following the disappearance of the latter, he assumed the general secretariat of the movement between the years 1978 and 1980, the date of the election of Nabih Berri at the head of the movement, who later succeeded him in the presidency of Parliament since 1992.
Al-Husseini, who was born in 1937 and is a father of six, is from the Bekaa town of Shamstar. He holds a diploma in Business Administration from Cairo University in 1963.