Tag Archives: President Martelly

Apr 6 2012

Martelly in Miami: A Surgery Of Controversy

President Martelly of Haiti

According to an official statement issued by the Office of the President in Port-au-Prince, President Martelly left Haiti Wednesday to Miami, Fl where he will undergo a surgical intervention in his right shoulder. No mention of the nature and scope of the surgery is made. He will return a week later, precisely on Thursday, April 12, 2012 to resume his activities.

Apparently, the fact that he is traveling abroad for medical reasons does not please many. Some are arguing that he should not be traveling to the US to be operated on; he should stay home and be treated by Haitian doctors and nurses only for the sake of inspiring confidence in the Haitian health care system. Are these people serious, really?

Of course, that is what every president would hope to see. But such is not the case for Haiti. And who said he will not be operated on by a Haitian orthopedist in Miami -one of our own who had studied in Haiti and left the country for political reasons or because he or she was not valued enough in his or her own country?

This argument, which I consider as a blame on the president’s account, would have made sense had Martelly been president for the past 26 years and nothing been done to structure our health care system and the delivery of care in the country.

Remember, Martelly has been in power for only 11 months; it took years to bring our health care system and the practice of the science of medicine to such a situation of chaos.

His predecessors are done messing up everything, now they want to hold him accountable for the state of affairs in the country. At some point in time, the practice of medicine in Haiti used to be one of the best in the region; it is not so anymore for years.

Aristide and Preval, these two Lavalas guys, for the twenty years they were in power, did not do anything of substance to make sure that their successors would not have to travel abroad should they need care as basic as emergency. They messed it up for all of us. So if blames need to be cast, they need to direct them at these two guys, not Martelly. In fact, did Rene Preval not have to travel abroad, to Cuba precisely, to have his prostate cancer taken care of? I did not hear all these chatters when that happened. Why now I am reading about all these jabbers? I guess Cuba is not foreign to Haiti, America is. Seriously, these healthcare nationalists need to find better ways to show their nationalism.

Mar 22 2012

Deactivated Military: Martelly Must Be Careful

The Martelly administration needs to be very careful in the way it plans to deal with the armed deactivated military personnel illegally occupying the installations of the old Haitian military disbanded by former President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1995.

This issue is like a ticking bomb, which, if not addressed properly, meaning if not addressed with tact and finesse, will go off and cause serious and irredeemable political drawbacks.

These guys are acting like a bunch of armed thugs with no sense of military discipline and respect for their Commander-in-chief. If they are really what they claim to be -disbanded military personnel -the fact that they could disobey the orders of the president to put down their weapons and evacuate the military bases, they technically enter in rebellion. For that, they should be dealt with by any means necessary, regardless if that means utilization of the use of force. That would be ideal, but for the sake of politics, it would not be the best course of action.

The orders issued by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security calling on the national police and MINUSTAH to go after these guys to disarm and force them to empty the sites they occupy will be like the spike needed to explode the bomb.

Using force in this situation is not warranted as it is not going to politically play in President Martelly’s best interest. It will quickly escalate into a political quagmire to be exploited by the president’s political opponents. In other words, bringing MINUSTAH in this affair will be politically disastrous for President Martelly as his political opponents will quickly jump on the bandwagon and start beating their drums of nationalism politics.

My advice to President Martelly is to create a multidimensional/multisectorial commission to sit down with these guys to come up with an agreement on a timetable to satisfy their claims, have them put down their weapons and evacuate the premises.

That is the most politically sensed approach to defuse this bomb and avoid a bloodbath in the country, which could politically weaken the president. I hope I do make sense and somebody with the power to influence the decision-making apparatus in Port-au-Prince could listen.

Feb 24 2012

Resignation Of PM Conille: I Am Not Surprised

Resigned Prime Minister Conille

The resignation of Prime Minister Conille does not surprise me a bit. I could foresee it coming. If it did not happen today, it was going to happen soon or later as he was becoming a powerless Prime Minister.

I supported him at first. But after I realized that he was challenging the president’s politics on many big political issues, such as the unfounded dual citizenship allegation of the president coming from Senator Moise Jean Charles, the publication of the text of the constitutional amendment, etc… I was somehow confused to the point where I found myself asking if he was executing his own agenda or the president’s.

He positioned himself as someone who was challenging the president. It is like having Vice President Biden going on the opposite direction to certain key political positions President Obama has taken. This is unacceptable.

I knew the Prime Minister’s days were technically over; it was just a matter of time for the end of his tenure to materialize. It is one thing to be in disagreement with the president, but when you have all the members of your own ministerial cabinet defying your orders, that in itself is politically crucial. When that happens, you can no longer consider yourself as someone in command.

It seemed as though there was a trust issue between Prime Minister Conille and President Martelly. The cohabitation between these two men had reached a point of no return, especially after the president had stormed the Prime Minister’s place of residence during a clandestine meeting he (the Prime Minister) was having with certain members of the legislature, some of whom are stark opponents of the president.

Days after this incident, as a result of a cabinet meeting, the president had issued a statement, which, with the exception of the Prime Minister, all the ministers who were there had agreed to. In the statement, the president had asked all the members of the government not to cooperate with the legislative committee in the investigation of the citizenship status of the president and all the members of the government -the Prime Minister, the ministers and the general secretaries.

Prime Minister Conille has placed himself in such predicament. He has not proven to be a team player. The senseless war of influence he started with the president was not warranted. You don’t do that, not with a president you are called to cooperate with to lead his government.

Now that he has resigned, President Martelly needs to go through the constitutionally required process to choose another Prime Minister.

I am rooting for Charles H. Baker, the former candidate for president, for the Prime Minister job. Unlike Conille, Baker is not an outsider; he knows the players on the ground. He is a man of consensus who is capable of building a great team to execute the president’s plan for the country.

This is not the time to be going to a panic attack. The resignation of the Prime Minister should have been expected, and we should have prepared ourselves for the eventuality. I refuse to believe that the country is going through a political crisis as the resignation of the Prime Minister is a possibility recognized in the Constitution; by the same token, we also have the constitutional recommendations as to how to address it.

Feb 7 2012

These Haitian Senators Will Face Deception in Washington, D.C.

Simon D. Desras - President of the Haitian Senate

The members of this congressional committee charged to investigate on President Martelly’s alleged foreign citizenship are expected to travel to Washington, D.C. to get to the bottom of this issue dominating the headlines for weeks -so they say.

They know this trip will not bring to light anything substantial, yet they still want to make it. Let me show you why I say that.

Under the provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974, it stipulates explicitly that “No agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written of, the individual to whom the record pertains…” Of course, there are exceptions to this clause; these exceptions, however, do not cover the action sought to accomplish by these senators.

The possible dual citizenship of President Martelly, a foreign dignitary, does not constitute a threat to the national security of the United States. Therefore, as Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had stated, no US institution, including the US Congress, has jurisdiction over matters internal to the Republic of Haiti.

In light of all this, would it not be fair to ask if these guys are really coming to the US to accomplish what they say they will come to accomplish? In all earnest, I strongly doubt that getting to the bottom of this dual citizenship nonsense is exactly what they are coming here to do.

In my humble opinion, I think they are coming to the US to see their concubines and kids they do not get to see often, not to do anything having to do with the so-called investigation. While they are here, they will also use the moment to go shopping for expensive suits and pieces of jewelry, electronics, automobiles and other stuff they will not find in Haiti.

These guys need to stop taking the Haitian people for a bunch of dummies. Their actions have brought us enough shame already; they need not to add anymore to the load. We have enough of these guys making all of us pass for the ridicule of the world. I hope they can for once exercise their judgment to spare us the shame I can foresee in the horizon.

Jan 26 2012

MAKE SURE PRESIDENT MARTELLY GETS THIS ASAP

President Martelly of Haiti

President Martelly, as I argued in my previous piece entitled THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON MOISE JEAN-CHARLES, it does not come to you to prove that you are Haitian and have never renounced your Haitian citizenship; it comes to Moise Jean-Charles to prove otherwise with the evidence he claims having in his possession.

If you hold the passport of another country, however, Mr. President, I am urging you to come out and say it and let me see these guys in the parliament destitute you. The people voted you in office not because you held a Haitian passport or whatever; they did, rather, because of your love and vision for your country. You inspire change; therefore, they want you to lead them towards that.

The ones who preceded you in power, those who did not so-called change their citizenship, I bet them to claim loving Haiti more than you do. They were in power before you, yet I don’t see how their “Haitian citizenship” had helped to make them better presidents than you. You have accomplished more for the country in your nine months in office than Preval has in his ten years.

Mr. President, you will finish your term no matter what. Ti Mari pap monte, Ti Mari pap desann. This is a political coup d’etat in the making, and it will not come through; the people will torpedo and defuse it. I trust and have faith in the good judgment of the Haitian people. So stay strong and resolute. Tet fret!!!

These guys in the parliament who are behind this coup are not acting in isolation. They very well know what this is all about. They will finally learn to respect the people’s will and desiderata.

If you conduct an opinion poll right now to take the pulse of the nation on this issue, you will realize that this Haitian Parliament is extremely unpopular and on the wrong side of it. So as unpopular as this Congress is, it would be unwise to have these guys in there decide the fate of the nation. They do not speak for me and thousands of others. All they ever worry about is their selfish political interests, not those of the nation.

Assuming that you are the holder of another county’s passport or had renounced the Haitian citizenship, in which case you are not in compliance with the dictate of the Constitution, this is not grounds for destitution since this is a special situation. Special situations require special solutions. We are in this special situation today because of what I would call a system glitch. If the Gaillot Dorsainvil PEC was doing its job, we would not be in this special situation today.

Mr. President, we will not go back to the mess we were in, to the status quo or business as usual; we will not go back to the old politics of the past. If they have a problem with you in the presidency with a foreign passport or whatever, let’s take it to the people and have a referendum for them to decide if they want you to stay or leave the presidency. Whatever comes out of the referendum will dictate the way forward. It is that simple. In the meantime, keep doing the good job you have been doing. As I said earlier, “tet fret. Ti Mari pap monte, Ti Mari pap desann.”

Jan 21 2012

THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON MOISE JEAN-CHARLES

President Martelly played off the dual citizenship charge held against him by Moise Jean-Charles exactly the way he is supposed to. Asked during a press conference for his take on the allegation making believe that he is not a Haitian citizen, making him not fit to be president, President Martelly said: “Patne a tande mizik kote m te konn di ‘El unico Italiano que tenemos aqui en Haiti;’ m gen enpresyon misye fek tande mizik la epi misye di m se Italyen. Poze!”

Ridicule works in politics. President Obama had used the same card dealing with the birther movement, which Donald Trump was the leader of. He ridiculed Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and made him pass for someone not worthy being taken seriously. It worked for him in that it has damaged Trump’s political standing. Today, not even his own Republicans take him seriously. A guy like Karl Rove sees him as a disturbing joke.

In politics, perception is reality. When people have the impression that you are a clown, it is not a matter of impression anymore; it forever becomes a matter of reality, a matter of fact. That’s exactly the card President Martelly is playing, and I am urging him to keep playing it until he wins the game.

President Martelly and the accused members of his administration must NOT cooperate with the legislative commission put in place to get to the bottom of this citizenship issue.  The burden of proof is on Moise Jean-Charles to prove his allegations factual, accurate and evident; to prove that President Martelly is not Haitian. It should not be the other way around. If he could say that President Martelly and certain members of his administration are not Haitian, he must come forth with all the tangible facts to corroborate his stance; it is not President Martelly’s job and certainly not that of his lieutenants to prove that they are Haitian.

Moise Jean-Charles in my book is a clown using the Haitian Parliament as his circus to perform his grotesque comedies whenever he feels like it, and we Haitians are his spectators. He was making all this noise only to submit to the commission in charge of investigating his allegations an envelope containing two passport numbers, according to Senator Yvon Buissereth , a leading member of this commission.

Moise Jean-Charles really takes the Haitian people for a bunch of stupid and lunatic heads. I really don’t get it, though. You say you have proof that President Martelly and certain members of his administration are not Haitian, yet when you are being challenged to bring forth the facts you claim having, you submit an envelope containing only two passport numbers. That’s your evidence. If this is not laughable, I don’t know what is.

What I have found to be very appalling in this whole saga is the fact that his colleague senators are putting on hold serious matters to solve for the betterment of the people to investigate an issue which the main accuser himself cannot help to get to the bottom of.  What is that telling you? I don’t know about you, but that is telling me that we are dealing with nothing but clowns in this circus we call the Haitian Senate. Could you imagine having the US Senate listening to Donald Trump and going as far as probing the citizenship of President Obama? That would have never happened because, unlike these senators in the Haitian Senate, these US senators have serious issues to worry about. Therefore, paying attention to a clown like Donald Trump would be the least of their worries.

I am urging President Martelly to stay resolute. The strategy he is using thus far is the right one; he needs to keep it all the way. He needs to continue making Moise Jean-Charles look like a socially frustrated or dissatisfied character, who has gotten to that level of lowness due to his socioeconomic upbringing coupled with a political ideology rooted in class warfare.

President Martelly has got to go after Moise Jean-Charles politically speaking. Any violent action on his person is highly discouraged. Violence is not the solution. He must be destroyed politically.

Two things any politician has going for them: trust and credibility. Once you lose them, your political life is basically over. So Martelly has got to go after him on these two core components.

The Martelly camp needs to call on its public relations experts to mount a character assassination campaign against Moise Jean-Charles. You have got to have people in the mud doing your dirty work. Have  “private” organizations create ads to be published on the internet and run on all the major radio and television stations targeting him. Here in the US, we call these types of organizations Super PACs (Political Action Committees). Their works go beyond effective. Portray him as a mentally deranged individual who is willing to do and say anything to stop the administration from doing the people’s job. Doing so will have two major effects on this political faceoff:  1) it will forever damage Moise Jean-Charles’s political tenure; 2) it will put to rest once and for all the dual citizenship case.

I have no doubt that this issue will backfire so adamantly that each time Moise Jean-Charles is to make another foolish and baseless allegation, he will be constrained to shut his mouth; no one will take him seriously. He will become the laughingstock of the entire country.

Jan 6 2012

MOISE JEAN-CHARLES: SHOW US THE FACTS

Senator Moise Jean-Charles

A couple of months ago, for everyone who wanted to shake their tail, Moise Jean-Charles, the senator from the country’s northern district, was beating the “Pink Militia” drum to accuse President Martelly of constituting clandestinely his own illegal armed militia. After being challenged on many occasions by responsible members of the civil society, he backed off and trashed his baseless and ridiculous claim.

Just when everyone thought he was muzzled up and forced by his constituents in the North to do the job he was elected to the Senate to do, he is out again making noise. All this week, he has been touring almost all the media outlets in Port-au-Prince to market another one of his foolish and baseless diatribes. This time, he claims having conducted an “investigation” and the conclusion shows that President Martelly is a foreign citizen. I have a question for the senator, though: Senator, as someone who is elected by the Northern people to represent them in the country’s Senate, why don’t you do them a favor to officially publish the findings of your “investigation” to show all the FACTS you say you have in your possession to corroborate your claim?

I am dying to see these FACTS he claims having in his possession to prove President Martelly’s foreign citizenship. That is what I need to see, and that is when I will be convinced that, indeed, he is doing his job. All he has been doing since got to the people’s Senate is to engage in extrapolative work just to capture the spotlight and turn himself into the “superstar” of the chamber.

In my opinion, President Martelly must not give in; he must not cooperate with any investigation geared towards confirming his Haitian nationality; the Gaillot Dorsainvil Provisory Electoral Council had long taken care of that. They cannot say that the PEC knew of the president’s foreign citizenship and still gave him a free pass. That will not stick, not when we know all the machinations and trickeries these guys in the PEC and the Preval administration had gone through and how they had tried their hardest to torpedo his chances to win the election.

President Martelly must consider taking legal actions to force Senator Moise Jean-Charles to officially publish the findings of his “investigation.” In the event that he fails to do so, he must be prosecuted for libel or defamation of character. This is unacceptable. By his actions, he is doing the country a great disservice. He must stop engaging his office in doing extrapolative work, which endangers the stability and national security of the nation.

Nov 3 2011

WAY FOR MARTELLY TO DEFUSE THE BOMB

Haitian President Michel J. Martelly

When President Martelly returns to the country from his week-long trip in the United States, he will have to address the nation to state his administration’s position on the contention between the executive and the legislative –generated by the arrest on Thursday afternoon of Deputy Arnel Belizaire at the Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-au-Prince as he was entering the country from his trip in France.

This speech will be the most important and delicate one he will ever have to deliver since he got in the National Palace six months ago, for it will have the potential to make or break his presidency.

The situation in Haiti as we speak is like a bomb that is ticking and needs to be defused as soon as possible. That means time is of the essence; there is absolutely no time to waste. As he is going to try his best to defuse it, he will have to be extremely careful to not let the unexpected worst occur.

My advice to him is to not try to pass the blame on anyone. The only best way for him to appease the situation and send everyone home with a happy face is to take personal responsibility for what happened and admit it was a technical faux pas in the way the prosecutor, Mr. Felix Leger, went about to carry out the order that was explicitly given to him.

Not only does he need to give the reasons as to why what he intended doing did not work out as expected, he also needs to include the nature of the miscalculation. Otherwise, he will have a hard time to get himself out of it and put the situation behind him.

There is nothing more humble when a leader is strong enough to be honest with his people to admit his missteps; the people love that. This will make him come out as a strong man, a man of character willing to go down so his lieutenants could be safe from enemy fire. That is, indeed, what responsible and resolute leaders do when the though gets going.

All responsible leaders mess up at some point in time during their tenure in command. And when they do, they always take personal responsibility because the bulk always stops with them. Only the coward ones pass the blame on their subordinates. President Kennedy, for instance, took full personal responsibility in the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster.

Less than three months after President Kennedy took office, in April of 1961, as the United States wakening from the embarrassing disaster at the Bay of Pigs, when CIA-backed Cuban exiles hit the beaches of their home country only to face defeat in their attempts to overthrow the Fidel Castro government in Cuba, Kennedy took full personal responsibility for the disaster. He did not try to blame it on anybody but himself. In his address to the nation, he eloquently said: “I am the responsible officer of the government.” The strategy paid off. He then got his highest approval rating of his presidency -83% in the Gallup Poll.

President Kennedy, then a newly elected president, per most historians’ accounts, made many mistakes in his handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion. But he learned very quickly from them to better himself for the job he was elected to do for the country.

Politics is a learning profession, meaning politicians learn how to respond to issues and adapt as they go.  There is no one silver bullet or blueprint as to how to avoid and solve all problems. Each issue is unique in its own genre.

So this is President Martelly’s crisis to deal with just like the Bay of Pigs disaster was President Kennedy’s embarrassment to deal with. Like President Kennedy, President Martelly has a lot of learning do. The way he will respond to this issue will tell a lot of his character. I can only hope he does the right thing, what all responsible leaders would do in his situation –taking personal responsibility and not trying to pass the blame on anyone. That is how trust and confidence that leadership will be better in the future is instilled.

Oct 10 2011

MINUSTAH & OUR NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

MINUSTAH peacekeepers

This United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH in French) has been established on June 01, 2004 by Security Council resolution 1542 -as a result of the fallout that followed the ousting of President Aristide.

The presence of this institution of the United Nations has been the object of many fulminating criticisms. Actions of certain members of the mission have infuriated people from many sectors in the population. Some see it as an occupation force that must leave the country by any means necessary and as soon as possible.

I think it is very unfair and dishonest to refer to MINUSTAH as an occupation force, for they did not come to soil the land of Dessalines, Christophe and Petion on their own; the Haitian government had requested it with the intent to stabilize the country after the ousting of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. How can you call someone an occupier when that person is in your house upon your invitation? That does not make any sense whatsoever to me.

MINUSTAH, as a force, should not be discredited for the actions of some of its members, for those actions, I presume, do not reflect any of the institution’s policies. In any great and respectable human institution (military, business, philanthropic, academic, etc…), you will always find overzealous and corrupted personnel. But the actions of these people should not be used as a litmus test to totally disqualify or dismiss the establishment as a whole. When members of an institution violate the organization’s internal policies, disciplinary actions must be taken against them to address their violations. But to call for the complete eradication of the institution because of that is, in my opinion, illogical.

MINUSTAH must eventually leave because, in my humble opinion, it is an aberration to have a sovereign nation such as ours being under the tutelage of an international force –humanitarian or otherwise. That is an argument all of us Haitians can agree upon. We should have not gotten ourselves in this predicament in the first place. We Haitians put ourselves in it and now we are raising hell.

I am for the withdrawal of all MINUSTAH personnel, but that redeployment must be carefully studied, crafted and implemented. If anything, we must adopt a “step-by-step” approach to that, meaning we will die down the troop levels as we go.

The Martelly administration must immediately sit down with the United Nations Security Council to recalibrate and redefine the mission of MINUSTAH. We have work on the ground they can do. They can help to remove the tones of rubbles, plant trees and police our forest space to prevent further deforestation.

I reject the idea that MINUSTAH must leave now. President Martelly, being the man in charge of the security of the country, must not give in to the pressure coming from certain segments of the population protesting to ask MINUSTAH to leave -without any sort of structural preparation in place. That is very irresponsible on their part.

If MINUSTAH leaves now, there will be a security vacuum which will further destabilize the country. We must not let our emotions get the best of us. We must get it right so that we do not regret having taken the step later.

The Haitian government needs to lobby the international community for technical and financial assistance to accomplish three major things:

a)      double the size of the national police force;

b)      build from scratch a battalion/group of 500 – 1000 well trained and equipped professional special forces;

c)       institute a national intelligence agency

This national security structure, whose mission will be to stabilize and secure the country, can be put in place and fully operational in about 12 or 18 months -if we have the means and are really serious about it.

We do not need a big military like the ineffective one we had back then, which former President Aristide has deactivated and now the Martelly administration wants to emulate. We need a smaller, lighter, faster and smarter force –the model of all the modern militaries around the globe.

The mission of that small contingent of military personnel will be to back up the police force whenever necessary to secure the territory, which may include dismantling all the terrorist cells currently operating on the ground. With this level of coordinated action, capturing dead or alive these terrorists terrorizing the population will be just a piece of cake.

The professional intelligence agency will serve as eyes and ears of the police force. They will infiltrate the terrorist cells to get sensitive and highly classified intel on their locations, tactics, their next value targets, etc… These leads, once collected, will be sent to the rear, to the police, for treatment so they could mount their preemptive strategy to stop the terrorists before they carry on their mission.

Eventually, we will have to either close the Interior Ministry or change its focus. That ministry must be the center of coordination of the operations of the three independent institutions: the police, the small military and the intelligence agency. The head of that ministry must be someone with national security expertise and experience. He or she will be the president’s czar on issues pertaining to national security.

The constant babblings amongst us on the issue whether or not Haiti should have its own military really intrigues me. We need the return of the Haitian military by any necessary means.

It is a priority to secure the country. Nothing can be done without a secure Haiti. Secure nations appeal to investments (local and foreign), a necessary ingredient for economic development. Regardless how well-intentioned President Martelly can be, if he cannot arrive at securing the territory, he will not be able to do anything to better the lives of the majority poor.

Finally, these people speaking against the idea of equipping the country with a military force probably know nothing about the military. They probably have never served a day in their lives, yet, all of a sudden, they are all experts in military affairs. I am for a systematic and coordinated redeployment of MINUSTAH by using a step-by-step approach. Such redeployment should not go on until we have the structure in place to replace the mission when they leave. We need to stop the outsourcing of the country’s security. So we must prepare the nation to take charge of its own security. To achieve that, we must double the size of the police, put in place a small brigade of well trained and equipped professional special forces and institute a national intelligence agency.

Jul 16 2011

PRESIDENT MARTELLY IS RAISING THE HEAT, EVALLIERE BEAUPLAN IS SCARED

PRESIDENT MARTELLY should have done this long ago -raising the heat by a) campaigning across the country selling his choice for Prime Minister to the people and b) exposing the tactics of the GPR-INITE parliamentarians wanting to literally torpedo his administration. Now EVALLIERE BEAUPLAN, one of the 16 senators hostile to GOUSSE, the president’s pick for Prime Minister, is feeling the heat, according to this article on Radiokiskeya.com. http://bit.ly/pyvik1

BEAUPLAN is so scared now that he is making false threats to PRESIDENT MARTELLY. He made it clear that if the president dissolves the legislature, his presidency will not last 24 hours; Martelly did not say a word about dissolving the Congress. This is proof that BEAUPLAN is feeling the heat. That’s a good sign.

This is a battle the president should fight and win by using a clear battle strategy -keep making the case for GOUSSE and exposing the strategy of the GPR-INITE guys as you are multiplying the talks and consultations. As I said before, you don’t “negotiate” from a position of weakness.

PRESIDENT MARTELLY must keep dragging his feet. Time is his best weapon right about now. He needs to keep slowing the process of sending GOUSSE before the Parliament; the longer the process lasts, the more the heat will mount on the GPR-INITE lawmakers. And he must not stop blaming them for the worsening of the people’s situation.

While the pressure is mounting on the GPR-INITE bloc, he needs to intensify the talks and consultations so that the people and the international community could see that he is trying his very best to “negotiate” with the legislature to pass the congressional gridlock and start solving the people’s problems.

In the logic of keeping the talks and consultations going, he needs to have a meeting with PREVAL and the leadership of the GPR-INITE group to attempt to find a solution to the crisis. PREVAL owns these slaves; therefore, he must have a talk with the master.

Time is on the president’s side of the spectrum. The longer this lasts, the better it is for him politically. He must not capitulate and be quick to raise the white flag. I foresee he will win this fight and come out of it politically stronger than ever before.

This is a psychological warfare; therefore, it must be fought and won psychologically. As long as he keeps selling his guy to the people across the country, denouncing the strategy of the GPR-INITE group and multiplying the consultations, he will be alright.