Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA-43) delivered the following statement at the December 10 Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing entitled, “Haiti on the Brink: Assessing U.S. Policy Toward a Country in Crisis”:
Michel Martelly came to office promising a stronger Haiti following a messy election that provoked widespread skepticism. He is due to leave power Sunday at the close of his five-year term with few accomplishments and a legacy clouded by a new political crisis.
The singer-turned-politician had urged Haitians to set aside deep divisions at his May 2011 inauguration. But his hostile relations with Parliament resulted in gridlock.
A hostile comment made by Haitian President Michel Martelly at a campaign rally has set off an uproar in his coalition government, leading a politically allied party to announce the resignation of three officials from his administration last Wednesday. The leader of the Fusion Social Democrats told reporters that two Cabinet ministers and a secretary of state will leave Martelly’s government due to the president’s comments to a woman in the port city of Miragoane. “This is inappropriate. Enough is enough,” Edmonde Supplice Beauzile said at a news conference announcing his party’s vote to remove its three officials, which include