Haitian political parties and labor unions have been protesting against the budget for a month, arguing that it will affect the most underprivileged of the country.
Police forces have been clashing with around a thousand protesters in Haiti – they are demanding the government resigns and revokes the bill approving next year’s budget.
Demonstrators tried to march from an upper-class district of the capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday towards the city center in Petionville, but officers stopped them halfway with tear gas and water cannon.
“Check it out yourself: although the protesters are running away, the police officers are still persecuting them,” said the opposition senator Antonio Cheramy. “The more violent they will behave, and the more the people will mobilize,” he added, calling the strategy counterproductive.
“Instead of addressing the demands of the people, Jovenel orders the repression of a march,” said Pierre Richard, who highlighted that the protesters were mostly people “with hunger, thirst, with no place to live.”
The protests have been called by a group of opposition lawmakers from the leftist political party Fanmi Lavalas, and are led by the nation’s former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, along with other parties and social organizations.
The budget, introduced by Moise and Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant, was passed by the country’s Congress in September.
The march was also commemorating the assassination of Jean Jacques Dessalines, leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first president of an independent Haiti.
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