Michèle Pierre-Louis

Michèle Pierre-Louis (2009)

Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis (born October 5, 1947 ) was Prime Minister of Haiti between September 2008 and her deposition by the Senate in October 2009 .

Life

Pierre-Louis is a trained economist . At the beginning of the 1990s she was responsible for drafting a land reform in Parliament under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide . Since 1995, Pierre-Louis Executive Director of the Knowledge and Freedom Foundation (FOKAL, German: Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty), a large part of the Open Society Institute of US billionaire and philanthropist George Soros funded NGO . In this role, Pierre-Louis launched a nationwide literacy campaign and initiated the construction of 40 libraries. In the civil war-like conditions during the last phase of Aristide's presidency, in early 2004 she resisted police officers who threatened their employees with weapons.

On June 23, 2008, she was nominated by President René Préval as Haitian Prime Minister. Her predecessor Jacques-Édouard Alexis was dismissed by Parliament on April 12, 2008 after excessive food prices caused unrest in the wake of the food price crisis in 2007-2008 . After that, two other nominees ( Ericq Pierre and Robert Manuel ) had already been rejected by the Chamber of Deputies, which had led to a three-month government crisis.

On July 17, 2008, the Chamber of Deputies approved the nomination of Pierre-Louis (with 61 votes for, one against and 21 abstentions), on July 31, 2008 the Senate (twelve votes in favor, five abstentions, no against). Opposition senators questioned her eligibility for office based on anonymous rumors that she was a lesbian . Evangelicals demanded - albeit unsuccessfully - a parliamentary commission of inquiry. It is only publicly confirmed that Pierre-Louis lives separated from her husband and has a grown-up daughter. Pierre-Louis is also considered an opponent of the rebuilding of the country's own army, which is demanded by the former military .

On August 29, 2008, the Chamber of Deputies approved its cabinet and government program, followed by the approval of the Senate on September 5. She took office on the same day.

Pierre-Louis is the second woman in this position after Claudette Werleigh .

On October 30, 2009, Michèle Pierre-Louis was overthrown by a vote of no confidence - 18 of the 29 MPs had spoken out against her - and, at the suggestion of the Haitian President René Préval, the then Minister for Planning and External Cooperation Jean-Max Bellerive was proposed as her successor elected.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Haiti's New Hope ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), www.domradio.de, July 18, 2008
2. ↑ Klug, critical, lesbian ( Memento from January 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau , July 18, 2008
3. ↑ Mutiny ended , taz , July 31, 2008
4. ↑ Prime Minister deposed - concerns about stability in the crisis state, NZZ from October 31, 2009 (accessed on Jan 27, 2010)