Montreal Gazette: By JOSEPH GUYLER DELVA, ReutersJuly 15, 2011
Two months after taking office with a promise to “wake up” Haiti, President Michel Martelly is battling to install a new government and the urgent task of rebuilding from last year’s earthquake is on hold.
Lawmakers have opposed his choices for prime minister in an early run-in with Haiti’s messy political reality for the shaven-headed former pop star and novice president elected in March.
He has promised to rebrand his nation from a development basket case into a Caribbean success story.
Diplomats and donors say the Western Hemisphere’s poorest state desperately needs a new administration in place to advance recovery from the 2010 quake that killed tens of thousands and wrecked much of the capital Port-au-Prince.
“As long as there is no agreement on the prime minister we are completely stuck,” said Roland Van Hauwermeirin, director in Haiti for international humanitarian agency Oxfam.
Oxfam says Haiti’s leaders urgently need to relocate more than 600,000 quake survivors still living under tents and tarpaulins. This requires swift decisions to resolve land-tenure obstacles and approve resettlement housing projects.
Other pressing tasks to be dealt with are a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 5,500 people since October and the threat of lifethreatening winds, floods and landslides as the annual hurricane season moves toward its active phase.
A parliament dominated by supporters of the country’s previous president last month rejected Martelly’s first pick for premier. Lawmakers also are opposing his second selection: Bernard Gousse, a former justice minister.
Gousse, accused by critics of once leading a crackdown against backers of ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was to present his credentials to the senate for review Thursday.
But 16 members of the 30-seat senate have already signed a public statement saying they oppose Gousse as prime minister. Martelly said if Gousse was not accepted as premier, putting a new government in place could take six months.
“We have the hurricane season and the cholera epidemic to deal with. I need to deliver the promises I made to the population,” Martelly said this week after cutting short a visit to Europe to tackle the institutional impasse.
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Martelly has missed the boat.
He could have been the big winner but now Haiti is a loser. He has done absolutely nothing.
His 8 nation Europe trip was a fiasco as 7 nations refused to accept him.
His attention span is limited and insiders say he calls “back-up, back-up” when he needs some white powder to keep him in motion.
His wife Sophia complains that he has given work to his drug dealers while leaving he brother and father out. Not a Democracy approach. Bad or no advice will see him soon gone.
Perhaps we will have another of those terrible 3 or 4 person ruling councils that masquerade as an excuse for governement. Martelly the turkey, and his Gousse