Haiti Place Haitian Leader’s Power Grows as Scandals Swirl

News Information

  • NEWS_POSTED_BY: Marcel Wah
  • NEWS_POSTED_ON: Apr 08, 2015
  • Views : 793
  • Category : Haiti News
  • Description : By FRANCES ROBLESMARCH 16, 2015

    Photo: THE CENTER OF POWER President Michel Martelly of Haiti, center, seated between Prime Minister Evans Paul, whose predecessor was ousted in December, and Sophia Martelly, the first lady, who has been targeted in a corruption complaint. Credit Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
  • Location : Port-au-Prince, Ouest, Haiti
  • Website : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/americas/haitian-president-tightens-grip-as-scandal-engulfs-circle-of-friends.html?_r=0

Overview

  • PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — With a brisk clap of his hands, Michel Martelly summed up the first steps he would take if he ever left the music business and became the president of Haiti.

    “First thing, after I establish my power, which would be very strong and necessary, I would close that congress thing,” Mr. Martelly was quoted as saying in 1997, when he was still a hugely popular singer. “Out of my way.”

    His words have proved prophetic. A political crisis almost four years into Mr. Martelly’s presidency gave life to the fantasy he once described: He is now running the country without the checks and balances of a parliament.

    After Mr. Martelly and his opponents in Parliament could not agree on elections, most legislative terms expired, and the seats remain empty. Only 11 elected officials remain in the entire country, and the president is one of them.

    For two months, Mr. Martelly has governed Haiti by executive order, concentrating power in the hands of a man who, his critics say, is a prisoner of his past, surrounded by a network of friends and aides who have been arrested on charges including rape, murder, drug trafficking and kidnapping.