News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: Jan 30, 2016
• Views : 2119
• Category : Haiti News
• Description : Miami Herald
  EDITORIALS
  JANUARY 30, 2016 12:00 PM
  
  Photo: Demonstrator chants “Down with Martelly” during a protest against President Martelly’s government in Port-au-Prince last week. Dieu Nalio Chery AP
• Location : Port-au-Prince, Ouest, Haiti

Overview

• One week before a new president was supposed to take office, Haiti lies in a state of suspended animation. The presidential runoff election has been postponed. The way forward is uncertain. But one thing is clear: President Michel Martelly must step down when his term expires on Feb. 7.
  
  Despite an unrelieved record of failure, Mr. Martelly suggested last week that he could prolong his tenure if no consensus for moving forward emerges.
  
  Are you kidding?
  
  Haiti’s people have already paid too dearly for Mr. Martelly’s disrespect for constitutional order and inept management. His suggestion adds another element of urgency to the imperative of finding someone this week to lead a provisional administration leading up to new elections.
  
  It can’t be the autocratic Mr. Martelly. For the last year he ruled by decree because he never held one election in four years. Cronyism, a chronic problem in post-Duvalier Haiti, reached new heights under Mr. Martelly. He never understood the notion of compromise, nor did he ever try to forge a national political consensus to make the most of the aid provided by the international community to recover from a 2010 earthquake. Whatever was good for “Sweet Micky” — his stage name as a musician — was good for Haiti, or so he seemed to believe.
  
  The job proved too big for him.
  
  Read more here >>