Lebanon central bank's first vice governor to take over as acting head

BEIRUT - The first vice governor of Lebanon's central bank Wassim Mansouri will announce on Monday that he is taking over as interim head once longtime chief Riad Salameh's tenure ends, three sources familiar with his thinking told Reuters.

Salameh, 73, is set to step down on Monday after a 30-year tenure, tarnished in recent years by a financial meltdown that impoverished many Lebanese as well as corruption charges against him at home and abroad, which he denies.

Mansouri, 51, is expected to announce the decision at a news briefing later in the day.

Lebanon's deeply divided political class had failed to name a successor to Salameh. According to Lebanese law, the first vice governor would take over in the absence of a governor.

Mansouri, a Shiite Muslim, was appointed along with three other vice governors in June 2020. The central bank leadership is selected via the sectarian power-sharing system that governs other top posts in Lebanon.

The governor is a Maronite Catholic and deputies are a Shiite Muslim, a Sunni Muslim, a Druze and an Armenian Catholic, all approved by the political chiefs representing their respective sects.

Mansouri was nominated in 2020 by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Shiite Amal Movement. Mansouri is a distant cousin of Berri.

He was trained as a lawyer and worked as a legal consultant to the finance ministry and to parliament in recent years, according to his biography on the central bank's website.