Berri, who had held the post for 13 years under pro-Syrian regimes, was re-elected by 90 votes to one in the 128-member legislature, now dominated by the main anti-Damascus alliance that won an eight-seat majority earlier this month.
Berri has been able to survive the departure of his longtime benefactors in April by retaining a solid hold over his own community - Lebanon's largest and poorest.
He has done so through his rock-solid alliance with Hizbullah, the rival Shia faction which faces UN demands to disarm its military wing.
Their alliance with other pro-Syrian factions swept 35 seats in parliament and retained their monopoly of the Shia community, which under Lebanon's sectarian political system, provides the speaker.
It was the fourth consecutive term for the now 67-year-old survivor, who first rose to prominence in 1980 by taking over the leadership of his Amal faction two years after the mysterious disappearance in Libya of its founder Moussa Sadr.
Berri then set about making himself an indispensable ally to Syria through the twists and turns of its long intervention in Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.
In 1984, he led his militiamen in an uprising against the US- and Israeli-backed regime of president Amin Gemayel.
Then between 1985 and 1988, he helped crush supporters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the so-called "war of the camps".
Finally he helped oust the anti-Damascus interim government of Michel Aoun, forcing the Christian leader into 15 years of exile in the closing actions of the civil war.
In the post-wear years, Berri played the role of counterweight to five-time prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri, a Sunni billionaire whose murder in a February bomb blast eventually forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops two months later.
A lawyer by training, detractors deride Berri as a "wily fox" who runs his political party the same way as he ran his wartime militia.
The scion of an important family from Lebanon's impoverished south, critics say he has also used money to maintain his traditional rural clientele, some of it public.
Like many Lebanese Shias, Berri's parents moved to Africa to make their money and he was born in Sierra Leone and studied in the United States before moving to Lebanon to continue his studies.
He is married with nine children, six of them by his first wife.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
To add a comment,
Please log in:
Don't have an account?
Register now to comment on stories and stay up to date on important events and issues in the Middle East with our newsletter.