• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Latin America

Haiti Finally Gets an Interim President

  • Senate President Jocelerme Privert was elected by lawmakers as Haiti's new interim president.

    Senate President Jocelerme Privert was elected by lawmakers as Haiti's new interim president. | Photo: AFP

Published 14 February 2016
Opinion

Privert will now assume office until the next national election, which so far remains indefinitely postponed.

The Haitian Parliament elected in the early hours Sunday morning Jocelerme Privert as the country's new interim president after two intense days of voting in the House and the Senate.

The information was broadcast on local television, which reported that two chambers elected Privert out of the five candidates registered.

Telesur's Haitian correspondent, Madelein Garcia, reported that the vote count began at 3 a.m. 

Privert, current president of the National Assembly, received 64 of the 92 votes in the upper House, and 13 of the 22 votes in the Senate. 

Privert was chosen on the second round of balloting after a lengthy session that stretched overnight Saturday into Sunday. 

In the first round of ballots two different results came from the two chambers of Parliament, which prohibited an interim leader from being chosen. Former Senator Edgard Leblanc Fils from the opposition Struggling People's Organization was elected in the House, while Privert was elected by the Senate.     
 
Privert will now succeed former President Michel Martelly, who left office on Feb. 7. He will stay in power until the country holds another national election, which has been postponed indefinitely.  

The elections have been put on hold after widespread allegations of fraud, a refusal by the main opposition candidate to participate in the second round of voting, and mass protests by angry and frustrated citizens.  

Privert will be officially sworn in later Sunday and take over from the Prime Minister Paul Evans, who temporarily assumed the role as president after Martelly's departure last week.

WATCH: Haitian Prime Minister: Battle for Power 'Not Good' for Country 

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.