PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 30, 2009 (AFP) -
Haitian lawmakers ousted the government of Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis Friday, potentially undercutting efforts to coax international investors back to the impoverished Caribbean nation.
After a 10-hour debate, 18 members in the 29-seat Senate voted just after midnight to dismiss Pierre-Louis, citing her poor performance in shepherding economic recovery in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
The senators then passed a resolution asking President Rene Preval to quickly name a new prime minister who would in turn form a new cabinet.
Senators who backed Pierre-Louis, a 61-year-old economist who has led Haiti for just over a year, boycotted the vote. Pierre-Louis also refused to attend the session, which was broadcast on radio and television.
"This session is illegal and unconstitutional," said Senator Yuri Latortue, one of the prime minister's supporters, urging fellow senators not to back the censure motion to "avoid plunging the country into another political crisis."
Just weeks ago Pierre-Louis had called on international investors to take advantage of Haiti's improved security situation and political stability by bringing back foreign capital.
"Today, I can say that the conditions are right for us to welcome investments," she told an October 1 meeting organized by the Inter-American Development Bank and backed by former US president Bill Clinton.
At the gathering, 200 potential foreign investors met with Haitian entrepreneurs and considered business opportunities in the country.
"I can tell you the political risk in Haiti is lower that it has ever been in my lifetime," Clinton told investors at the time.
Haiti's lawmakers last year overwhelmingly approved the prime minister's political program, originally aimed at resolving a months-long stalemate sparked by the resignation of her predecessor, Jacques-Edouard Alexis.
The country was gripped by a tense standoff after Alexis was ousted in April 2008 amid riots over skyrocketing food prices.
Friday's vote is the latest major political upheaval for Haiti since Preval was elected in February 2006, following two years of turmoil sparked by the ouster of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide.
In the last year, Haiti -- despite being battered by successive hurricanes in 2008 -- hoped to move forward on improving its latent tourism industry, thought to be a sector able to drive economic development.
The country, on the island of Hispaniola -- which it shares with the Dominican Republic -- has been under the oversight of a 7,000-strong, Brazilian-led UN mission (MINUSTAH) since 2004 due to its recurring political and social turmoil.
Seventy percent of Haiti's population lives on less than two dollars per day and half of its 8.5 million people are unemployed.
Many Haitians fear a return to political violence or to bloody feuds between drug trafficking gangs should the UN mission leave the country.
"We are here to guarantee security so that other agencies and institutions, including the government, can allow the country to take care of itself," MINUSTAH's military commander, Brazilian General Floriano Peixoto, told AFP in July.
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