Yearbook 2008
Haiti. A mistrust was made to Prime Minister Jacques
Edouard Alexis in April. The Senate first refused to approve
his successor Michèle Pierre-Louis's government plan. It was
not until April 19 and June 7 that the Senate election
elections held for more than a year were held and that would
guarantee necessary political support to Pierre-Louis. But
it took as long as September 5 before the new Senate
approved Pierre-Louis and the five-month political stalemate
on the government formation issue could be broken. The
following day Pierre-Louis was sworn into office.
According to
Countryaah reports, the Senate's swift decision came as a direct result of
Haiti being hit by no less than four hurricanes in just
three weeks in August that killed at least 700 people and
directly impacted almost a million people's lives. In the
city of Gonaïves in northern Haiti, buried under 3 million
cubic meters of clay, 80 percent of the population became
homeless as a result of the storm. Haiti's already weak
infrastructure and agricultural sector were hit hard, and
President René Préval claimed that the natural disasters had
caused the country to retreat for several years in its
development.
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