BEIRUT - Saad Hariri, the son and anointed heir of murdered former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, is more at ease in the world of business than the rough-and-tumble of politics.
But his father's killing in a February bomb blast propelled the 35-year-old tycoon to centre stage in the anti-Syrian opposition and his political list is set to sweep the first round of Lebanon's elections after many rivals stood aside even before voting began.
"It is a tsunami that nobody can challenge," said potential rival Saadeddine Khaled who declined to campaign against Hariri in the first general elections in three decades without the presence of Syrian forces.
"If anyone takes the risk, he would be accused of playing the game of (Hariri's) murderers," Khaled said recently.
Indeed, the lists headed by the 35-year-old Saad Hariri, who took over his father's Future Current party, are even called the "Martyred Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri" lists
Supporters of Saad, Hariri's second son by his first Iraqi wife, are expected to scoop all 19 seats in the capital Beirut in the first round of the four-stage elections.
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 of Lebanon after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
Sources close to the Hariri family say they chose Saad to take on the task because he has more charisma and is better at interacting with people than his eldest brother, Bahaa.
Saad Hariri, a business graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, heads his father's Saudi-based construction firm and launched his own successful real estate company.
He has been managing his father's business empire since 1996, and owns 85 percent of his own real estate firm with an estimated capital of 145 million dollars.
Hariri is married with two young children. His wife, Lara Bashir Al-Adem, hails from a prestigious Syrian family.
Saad Hariri registered as a parliamentary candidate shortly before the deadline earlier this month, but his candidacy had been anticipated for weeks.
His father's legacy loomed large over the campaign, as giant posters depicting Rafiq Hariri spread throughout Beirut and candidates on Hariri's list ran under the banner "loyalty to the memory of Rafiq Hariri."
Though he lacks political experience, the typically soft-spoken Saad Hariri has taken his father's reigns with ease.
In an interview with AFP this month he pledged "a white revolution against the police state which governed Lebanon during 15 years," in a reference to Syria and its allies.
"I do intend to prove myself, I do intend to work hard, I do intend to achieve my father's cause," he said in an interview with CNN earlier this month.
The Lebanon Daily Star labeled him an "unlikely" candidate whose "inexperience in walking the crooked paths of the Lebanese political environment is not a detriment but rather an asset."
"Because of his lack of exposure to the corrupt reality of the Lebanese state, he has the means to resist negative aspects of governance that are so prevalent here," the newspaper said.
The Hariri clan has largely benefited from a swell of anger over the February 14 assassination of Rafiq Hariri, who served five terms as Lebanon's prime minister over much of the past decade.
"Every vote should be a bullet in the heart of the murderers," Saad Hariri told crowds during his campaign.
Cognisant of the new political era Lebanon is entering, Sadd Hariri said he hopes to be able to implement some of the reforms his father championed.
"The economic programme could not be achieved because of the obstacles put in place by the pillars of the (pro-Syrian) police regime," he has said.
Asked if he intends to eventually run for prime minister like his father, Saad Hariri answer demonstrated his newly acquired political know-how: "What my father wanted was never a position... he wanted to do something for Lebanon and if I can do it without being prime minister or by being prime minister, it is something that time will tell," he said.

05/29/2005 13:21 GMT