BEIRUT: Omar Karami, who died Thursday at the age of 80, headed two of Lebanon’s governments and resigned from borth under popular pressure amid dramatic developments which hit the country.
A scion of a prominent Tripoli political family, Karami was born on March 17, 1935.
His father, the late Abdel Hamid Karami, played a major role in achieving the country’s independence in 1943, and served as a prime minister, a minister and an MP at different periods during the tenure of Beshara al-Khoury, the first president after independence.
Omar Karami studied at the American University of Beirut and then moved to Cairo, where he obtained a law degree in 1956. He founded his own law firm the same year.
He first entered the political arena after the June 1987 assassination of his elder brother Rashid, who served as prime minister eight times between 1955 and 1987.
With the signing of the 1989 Taif Agreement ending Lebanon’s 1975-1990 Civil War, Omar Karami was appointed the education minister in the government of Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss. In December 1990, Karami became prime minister.
Karami’s government took bold steps to erase the traces of the Civil War, dismantling and disarming all militias that took part in the 15-year conflict.
Under his leadership, the government introduced a general amnesty law in March 1991.
The Lebanese lira sharply depreciated during the last days of Karami’s first tenure as prime minister, sparking nationwide union protests, that ultimately forced him to step down in May 1992.
Months later, Karami ran in the first parliamentary elections held since the end of the Civil War, and became a lawmaker in his home region of Tripoli.
He was re-elected consecutively in the parliamentary polls of 1996 and 2000.
Karami was a staunch critic of the policies of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
After Hariri’s resignation following the controversial three-year extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term, Karami was once again nominated as prime minister.
He formed a government in October 2004, holding the post of prime minister on Feb. 14, 2005 when Hariri was assassinated.
The opposition held his government responsible for the assassination, organizing mass rallies in Downtown Beirut.
Karami subsequently stepped down on Feb. 28 after Sidon MP Bahia Hariri, the sister of the assassinated prime minister, delivered a fiery speech in which she called on him to resign.
He was nominated to form a new government days later, but was not successful.
With the Syrian army’s withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005, Karami aligned with the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition.
He ran for parliamentary polls in 2009 but did not succeed.
However, his son Faisal was appointed in June 2011 as the minister of youth and sports in the government of Najib Mikati.
Karami is survived by his wife Maryam Qoubtan, sons Faisal, and Khaled, and daughters Youmn and Zeina.
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