Amid Crisis, Haiti Leader Names Cabinet

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — President Rene Preval appointed a new government by decree Thursday in an attempt to end nearly two years of crisis and regain the confidence of the international community.

Haiti’s new government, packed with Preval allies, was immediately criticized by his political opponents. Yet it probably will be welcomed by Haiti’s business sector and an international community frustrated by Haiti’s prolonged political stalemate.

“We’ve taken a big step forward,” Premier Jacques-Edouard Alexis said in a radio broadcast. A new government will be able to organize elections in a country where allegations of fraudulent vote-counting and rigged ballots have prompted most parties to boycott the electoral process.

“This government didn’t get parliamentary approval. It will pursue Preval’s antidemocratic project” to concentrate power in the president’s hands, said Rep. Arry Marson of the Struggling People’s Organization, which held a majority in the previous Parliament.

“The government is 95% within the sphere of influence of Preval and [former President Jean-Bertrand] Aristide,” acknowledged Claude Roumain, leader of one of five opposition parties that signed a March 6 pact approving the formation of a new government.

None of those parties has members in the new 15-member Cabinet. Nor does the Struggling People’s Organization.

The Cabinet includes two ministers from the former government and four who were ministers under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Preval’s mentor and predecessor.