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| Ericq Pierre has been rejected by the Haiti Parliament for the second time. | |
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 14, 2008 - President Rene Preval's choice for Haiti's Prime Minister has been rejected by the Parliament for the second time, less than a week after the Senate gave its overwhelming approval to the nominee.
The Chamber of Deputies (the Lower House of Parliament) rejected 63-year-old economist, Ericq Pierre, in a 51-35 vote with nine members abstaining. Without that approval the Senate's endorsement is not enough for Mr Pierre to take up the post which has been vacant since April 12 when former Prime Minister, Jacques Edouard Alexis, was ousted in a no-confidence motion on the heels of violent food protests in the country. Legislatures charged that he had mismanaged the economy.
It was the second such rejection for Mr Pierre. In 1997, during President Preval's first term in office, he proposed Mr Pierre to take over leadership of the government but the Parliament did not agree that he was the right man for the job.
A leading opposition deputy, Levaillant Louis Jeune, told the Associated Press that legislators did not have faith in the political leadership of Mr Pierre, a senior official with the Inter-American Development Bank.
"We didn't really believe in the plan that he had for the people of this country," he told reporters in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Mr Preval will have to nominate another candidate, who must win a vote of confidence in both houses of Parliament, and Stephen Benoit, a member of the President's Lespwa party in the lower house, said the country must unite behind the next nominee.
"We need to have a new prime minister in office soon," he said.
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