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Haiti: Prime Minister Garry Conille resigns
His resignation may have been prompted in part by a dispute among government officials over whether any of them have dual nationality, which the nation’s constitution prohibits for senior government officials. Many officials in Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean spend considerable time overseas.
A commission of lawmakers has been investigating allegations that Martelly administration officials may have citizenship in the U.S. or elsewhere. Conille and other officials have turned over their passports and other documents to the commission, but the findings of the investigation have not been announced.
Conille told The Associated Press after a news conference last week that he and Martelly were on good terms despite rumors to the contrary.
“I have a good working relationship with the president,” he said. “Haiti is a big country of rumors. I think we have a very frank and honest relationship where we discuss things. I think a lot of people sometimes have a vested interest in creating a distance between all members of government so you hear that we have problems. I would basically think that it’s mostly rumors.”
Even though Conille said he was on good terms with Martelly and others, foreign diplomats raised concerns that he was at odds with other branches of government.
On Thursday, Mariano Fernandez, the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti, issued a statement noting a “series of repeated crises between the executive and legislative powers that undermine the proper functioning of the institutions and the democratic process.”
“The political deadlock and institutional paralysis between the Government, Parliament and the President does not reflect the commitments they have undertaken vis-a-vis the Haitian people and are not likely” to help Haiti’s struggling economy, wrote Fernandez, who’s a special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
