Haiti’s Senate replaces Prime Minister
by Peter HaasOctober 31st, 2009
Former Prime Minister Pierre-Louise at the IDB investor meeting in Port Au Prince earlier this month with Former President Bill Clinton, President Rene Preval and Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno. Photo by Peter Haas AIDG
Haiti’s Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis was dismissed by the Haitian senate in late night voting. President Rene Preval has nomminated Jean Max Bellerive, the country’s planning and co-operation minister, to be her replacement.
Quotes on the dismissal:
From the Miami Herald:
” Pierre-Louis, in office for a year, said she has spent much of her tenure getting international support for Haiti after four back-to-back storms devastated the country last year, and it is too soon to see the results of her work.
Senators were not swayed.
But unlike the last censure of a Haitian prime minister — Jacques-Edouard Alexis in April 2008 following days of food riots — this one wasn’t as swift or orderly.
At times, chaos reigned: Lawmakers screamed and talked over one another in front a national television audience.
The Senate president often rang a small silver bell in a futile attempt to create order as the session stretched into Friday morning without a vote. The vote finally occured at about 12:15 a.m., long after Pierre-Louis’ Senate supporters had left, believing they had succeeded in preventing a vote.
“There is an error in the summons and everyone knows it,'’ said Sen. Youri Latortue, a Pierre-Louis supporter who last year successfully led the movement to oust Alexis.
But those lined up against Pierre-Louis weren’t moved by the constitutional arguments, nor her letter to the Senate president questioning the validity of the censure and informing him that she did not plan to attend the session.”
From Al Jazeera:
“The move to fire Pierre Louis comes days after Bill Clinton, the UN’s special envoy to Haiti and a former US president, told an investor conference in Port-au-Prince that Haiti’s political risk was lower than it had been in his lifetime.”
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