Haiti presidential council picks leader, next prime minister to head transition
A former presidential candidate and head of the Senate was selected Tuesday to head Haiti’s new nine-member transitional presidential council in a deal that also picked a former minister of sports to be Haiti’s next prime minister.
Edgard Leblanc Fils,
68, was named president of the transitional presidential council shortly before noon and nearly two hours behind a scheduled vote, after an agreement among four of the panel’s seven voting members. The same majority then selected Fritz Bélizaire, a one-time minister of youth and sports, as prime minister to replace the outgoing Ariel Henry.
“We can discuss, negotiate, make concessions and arrive at a result,” Leblanc said.
The naming of Bélizaire immediately threatened a new crisis. Three voting council members and their groups —Fanmi Lavalas, Montana Coalition and the private sector — accused fellow members of violating their own procedures on how they would name a prime minister and threatened to leave the council if the decision appointing Bélizaire was not reversed.
The surprise turn of events occurred after the political groups on the council switched their last-minute support from former Sen. Louis Gérald Gilles, who represents the December 21 coalition on the panel, and cemented a deal backed by Gilles, the political party Pitit Desalin and the coalition known as EDE/RED/ Compromis Historique.
An engineer and cofounder of the Organization of the People in Struggle, Leblanc is part of a collective of political parties whose membership includes PHTK, the political party of former President Michel Martelly. Leblanc was president of the Haitian Senate from 1995 to 2000 during the first administration of President René Préval. Bélizaire, who is also a civil engineer, served as a government minister in 2007-08, during Préval’s second presidential term.
Leblanc said that there was a two-hour delay because council members were engaged in negotiations to reach a vote by a majority and that “the acceptance of this exercise proves that we can.”
“We believe in the council,” Leblanc said in remarks after the announcement that he had been selected president. “The first thing that is important for us is cohesion among us; political will and determination to overcome conflicts and arrive by consensus, and at times, discussions and negotiations ... to free the country from actions that have created a lot of suffering and victims.”
Brokered by an international coalition led by the 15-member bloc known as CARICOM, the transitional presidential council has a tough road ahead. More than two months after a united front of armed gangs began targeting the airport, prisons, police stations, seaport and other key government structures in the capital, Portau-Prince remains under siege and paralyzed. More than 2,500 Haitians have died or been injured since the start of the year, millions are going hungry, and thousands have fled to cities outside the capital or to displacement camps around the capital.
Under a political accord agreed on among their sectors and political parties, council members have until February 2026 to provide Haiti with a newly elected president, parliament, local representatives and possibly a new constitution. But to get there, they have to form a new cabinet of ministers and ready the country to receive the deployment of a multinational security force led by Kenya to help restore security.
They also have to convince Haiti’s population of 12 million population that they can bring about change for the better.
At a news conference in Miami, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Brian A. Nichols, reserved commenting on the day’s events, saying he was awaiting official notification of the names. But he stressed that the council is a temporary process to allow Haitians to choose their own leaders through free and fair democratic elections.
“We have said for years now, it’s important for Haiti to have a broad inclusive government,” he said. “The debate over who forms the membership of the presidential council was an inclusive one.”
Nichols stressed the urgency of the situation, noting that every day that goes by “is a lost opportunity to provide” Haitians with relief. The United States, he said, still supports the rapid deployment of a Kenya-led Multinational Support Security Mission. For security reasons, he would not say when that force is expected to arrive.
On paper, Leblanc is supposed to be nothing more than a coordinator, someone to help the council prioritize and focus on the long list of challenges ahead — restoring security and the economy, and taking
Haiti to new elections, as well as providing a signature for accords, going abroad for meetings and receiving heads of state.
But in the minds of the council members, four of whom had presented their own candidacies, the role had been viewed as if it were a real presidency, having much more power than what is written in the political accord about how the group is to function.
Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, council members and their political parties and sectors were engaged in heavy behind-the-scenes discussions and lobbying that saw the old political guard and the country’s powerful private sector at loggerheads over who should lead the council, and who would cement the 4-3 voting majority needed to adopt policies. The week-long negotiations, which took a drastic turn in the 24 hours before the announcement, pitted political tacticians against those who were dogmatic in refusing to talk to some party leaders with the ability to influence the blocs.
Two sources familiar with the negotiations told the Miami Herald that the key behind Tuesday’s decision is Jean-Charles Moïse, a firebrand former senator and the leader of the Pitit Desalin political party.
Moïse had initially refused to participate in the panel after being invited to do so by Caribbean leaders.
Since joining the council, he has emerged as a key player, building an alliance with former foreign minister and prime minister Claude Joseph, whose EDE/RED/Compromis Historique coalition is represented on the council. Going into the vote on Tuesday, Moïse had asked council members to sign a document supporting Bélizaire as prime minister to replace Henry, who stepped down last week.
Bélizaire was handpicked by Moïse, and his selection ran counter to the open process the council announced it would launch to choose the next head of Haiti’s government.
While Tuesday’s decision marks progress in a process that began on March 11 — when Caribbean leaders met in Jamaica to help Haitians find a political deal as marauding gangs threatened the collapse of the government — it is also the second time in a week that council members announced plans to do one thing and in the end did something else.
Ahead of last week’s swearing in of the council, members said the venue would be the old prime minister’s office, Villa Accueil, and not the presidential palace.
It turned out they were sworn in at the presidential palace anyway, a decision that had been decided two days earlier and as they embarked on a misleading press tour. This week, they again turned to the media, inviting journalists to observe the voting. They published rules and even had two ballot boxes waiting.
Then after two hours, Frenel Joseph, one of two non-voting observers, emerged to announce that there had been a change of plans. He then named Leblanc and later Bélizaire as part of the leadership of Haiti’s new political transition.