Haiti’s Senate challenges Claude Joseph; there are now three aspirants to head the country

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Haitian Senate, with only one-third of its active members present, appointed Friday (9) its head, Joseph Lambert, as president of Haiti, in a frontal challenge to the legitimacy of the interim prime minister, Claude Joseph.

The Senate’s decision aggravates the dispute for power in Haiti, given the vacuum opened by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise last Wednesday and the ambiguities posed by the Constitution in the succession mechanisms.

The resolution designated Lambert as interim president until February 7, the scheduled end of Moise’s five-year term. It urged him to form “a government of national consensus” with the mission of organizing elections as soon as possible.

THREE MEN CLAIM TO LEAD HAITI

To deny Joseph’s legitimacy, the Senate relies on the fact that Jovenel Moise, in the last decree he signed before his death, appointed a new Prime Minister, Dr. Ariel Henry, who was never formally sworn in.

Henry also arrogated to himself the right to head the government in the first moments after Moise’s death but has not spoken out again, after the United Nations and Washington expressly recognized Joseph as head of government.

Read also: Read here how the crisis in Haiti develops

Joseph assumed the reins of government when he announced Moise’s death in the early hours of Wednesday morning. In all his public appearances, he has been surrounded by the head of the Police, Léon Charles, and other authorities.

As it happens, all three aspirants to lead Haiti on an interim basis have legitimacy problems, stemming from the fact that the Parliament has been effectively inoperative since January 2020 due to the postponement of the 2019 elections.

As a result, Parliament was unable to ratify the appointment of any of the prime ministers and now lacks the legal powers to pass resolutions – including the one declaring Joseph Lambert president of Haiti.

ARRESTS CONTINUE

On the sidelines of the power struggle, Haitian authorities continued their operation this Friday to arrest those allegedly involved in the death of Jovenel Moise.

Three Colombians were arrested this Friday, bringing the total number of people arrested in recent days to 20, mostly Colombians and two Haitian-Americans. Five Colombians are believed to remain at large, and the other three were killed in shootouts with authorities in the last two days.

Eleven of the alleged mercenaries were arrested on Thursday at the Taiwanese embassy in the Haitian capital, as confirmed Friday by the diplomatic legation itself.

EXTENSION OF THE INVESTIGATIONS

The prosecutor’s office investigating the case announced that it has summoned to testify, for next week, eight people, among them the four top officials in charge of the president’s security, two former senators, and two tycoons, known opponents of Moise.

Among those summoned are investor Reginald Boulos, owner of a conglomerate of companies, and Dimitri Vorbe, whose family owns the company that controls the electricity sector.

Both were accused by the Moise government of financing the protests that have destabilized the country at various periods since 2018.

The prosecutor has also called former senator Steven Benoît, who has questioned the official version of the assassination in several interviews and suggested that Moise was killed by his own security force.

NERVOUSNESS IN THE STREETS

Port-au-Prince returned to normality in part this day, as stores and street markets reopened, many civil servants returned to their jobs at the request of the government, after two days of empty streets; the airport resumed operations with the reopening of flights.

However, there were nervous moments in front of the U.S. embassy, where a group of hundreds of people gathered to ask for visas to flee the country.

One of those present, Jefferson Javeus, waving his passport in his hand, said on behalf of the group that “after the president’s death, it is not possible to live in Haiti.”

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