Haiti Update: Martelly to set elections date in bid to resolve crisis

Haiti President Michel Martelly said he will use his authority to call elections in coming months after legislators failed to enact an election law, according to Haitian Caribbean News Network.

Martelly said he will schedule parliamentary elections under the authority granted to him when the legislature dissolved after lawmakers failed to pass an election law on Monday, the network reported. Haiti’s congress is now without a quorum after the mandates for all 99 deputies and 10 of the 30 senators expired.

Martelly did not say when the elections would be held. His term expires next year, and presidential elections are scheduled for October.

Lawmakers, at odds with Martelly over the makeup of the electoral council and other posts, blocked a law needed for the country to hold parliamentary elections. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and the head of the supreme court resigned last month. The dispute threatens to undermine economic progress Haiti has made under Martelly as well as political stability in the hemisphere’s poorest country.

“The Haitian Parliament, after January 12, is in a phase of dysfunction,” opposition Senator Westner Polycarpe said Jan. 13 via an e-mail response to questions. “The coming days will be dark, really, very dark.”

Martelly on Tuesday posted photos to his Twitter account showing him meeting with representatives of political parties and a delegation of senators at the National Palace.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek