Martelly to address Nation as 5-Day Head of Totalitarian State

Michel Martelly [file]

Written by

THE SENTINEL STAFF

Friday, 16 January 2015 04:17

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - 5 days as head of a totalitarian state, Michel Martelly, is expected to address the nation on Friday January 16, 2015 at 5PM according to a source in the National Palace. It is unclear if the Head of State will announce his resignation; the content of the message has not been disclosed but observers continue to speculate on a myriad of possible outcomes.

The address will succeed a meeting with former deputies of the 49th Legislature, of which also, the content of the meeting is not know even to the invitees. Different declarations about the meeting and what may come out of the address demonstrate the critically precarious situation Haiti is in with the totalitarian regime.

Former Deputy Danton Leger said he was not sure what the meeting with the deputies is about during an interview Friday morning. Leger said he could not anticipate and therefore could not prepare for the meeting but made a few hypotheses of where things may go.

Leger said he hoped for Martelly to decide to declare the Parliament functional in order to give himself legitimacy, but this is something neither the Head of State nor anyone else for that matter, has the right to do except by Constitutional amendment, of which the process is outlined in the Constitution.

For Danton Leger, if the Head of State intends to rather declare Parliament dysfunctional, as he has hoped for nearly four years to do, then Leger said Martelly would find many lawmakers against him. It was already announced earlier in the week that former lawmakers were going to join the demonstrations for Michel Martelly’s resignation on Friday.

The installation of the nominated Prime Minister Evans Paul seems unlikely but still possible. Paul’s installation did not appear on the Head of State’s agenda and this comes at a time when the 30 day term of the interim-Prime Minister, Florence Duperval Guillaume is expiring.

Tags: Martelly K-Plim Parliament Danton Leger Chamber of Deputies