PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
United Nations development specialist Garry Conille was named Haiti’s new prime minister on Tuesday evening, nearly a month after a coalition within a fractured transitional council sought to choose someone else for the position.
The long-awaited move comes as
gangs continue to terrorize the capital of Port-au-Prince, opening fire in once
peaceful neighbourhoods and using heavy machinery to demolish several police
stations and prisons.
Council member Louis Gérald
Gilles told The Associated Press that six out of seven council members with
voting power chose Conille earlier Tuesday.
He said one member, Laurent
St. Cyr, was not in Haiti and therefore did not vote.
Conille has been UNICEF's
regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean since January 2023 and
previously served as Haiti’s prime minister from October 2011 to May 2012 under
then President Michel Martelly.
He replaces Michel Patrick
Boisvert, who was named interim prime minister after Ariel Henry resigned via
letter in late April.
Henry was on an official trip
to Kenya when a coalition of powerful gangs launched coordinated attacks
February 29, seizing control of police stations, shooting at Haiti’s main
international airport and storming the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing
more than 4,000 inmates.
Henry was locked out of the
country by the attacks, with the airport in the Port-au-Prince capital
remaining shuttered for nearly three months.
Gang violence is still surging
in parts of Haiti’s capital and beyond as Conille takes over the helm of the
troubled Caribbean country awaiting the U.N.-backed deployment of a police
force from Kenya and other countries.
Conille studied medicine and
public health and helped develop health care in impoverished communities in
Haiti, where he helped coordinate reconstruction efforts after the devastating
2010 earthquake.
He worked for several years at
the United Nations before Martelly designated him as prime minister in 2011.
Conille resigned less than a
year later following clashes with the president and his Cabinet over an
investigation into government officials who have dual nationality, which is not
allowed by Haiti’s constitution.
In addition to picking a new
prime minister, the council also is responsible for selecting a new Cabinet and
holding general elections by the end of next year.
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