Haiti: Jocelerme Privert elected interim President

Haitian lawmakers early Sunday elected Privert, 62, a senator and president of the National Assembly, was chosen on the second round of balloting after a lengthy session that stretched overnight Saturday to Sunday.

The lawmakers chose Privert over two other candidates, Dejan Belizaire and Edgar Leblanc Fils, both former presidents of Haiti’s senate. Belizaire was quickly eliminated after receiving just 2 votes.

Martelly ended his 5-year term without a successor on February 7. Under an agreement signed hours before his departure, the interim president chosen by parliament would serve for up to 120 days, a new election would be held on April 24, and the new president would be installed on May 14.

After taking the oath, Privert announced that he would form a “consensus government capable of inspiring confidence, and able to create peace for the continuation of the electoral process.”

This is the first time since 1946 that a Haitian chief of state is chosen by indirect vote. The immediate roots of the crisis can be traced to October, when Martelly’s favored candidate, Jovenel Moïse, won the first round of presidential voting 33 percent to 25 percent over runner-up Jude Célestin.

The opposition politician, however, denounced the results as a “ridiculous farce.”

A scheduled January 24 runoff between Moïse and Célestin was canceled when Célestin refused to participate unless widespread electoral reforms were enacted, and following protests alleging that Moïse won the first round through dirty tricks.

Privert comes to the job with experience as a bureaucrat and as a politician. For some 30 years Privert worked in the country’s tax office until he left in 2002 to be interior minister under then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That stint did not last long, as Aristide was ousted amid widespread unrest in February 2004.

Privert was arrested soon after and he spent 26 months in prison and was released without a trial in June 2006. He returned to politics in 2010, when he was elected senator, rising eventually to the chamber’s top position.

Source: Agencies