A surprise announcement that revealed Haiti’s new prime minister is threatening to fracture a recently installed transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for the gang-riddled Caribbean country.

Four of seven council members with voting powers said Tuesday that they had chosen Fritz Bélizaire as prime minister, taking many Haitians aback with their declaration and unexpected political alliance.

HAITI COUNCIL APPOINTS NEW PRIME MINISTER AS COUNTRY CONTINUES TO FACE DEADLY GANG VIOLENCE

The council members who oppose Bélizaire, who served as Haiti’s sports minister during the second presidency of René Préval from 2006 to 2011, are now weighing options including fighting the decision or resigning from the council.

A person with direct knowledge of the situation who did not want to be identified because negotiations are ongoing said the council’s political accord had been violated by the unexpected move and that some council members are considering other choices as potential prime minister.

The council on Tuesday was scheduled to hold an election and choose its president. But two hours and a profuse apology later, one council member said that not only a council president had been chosen, but a prime minister as well. Murmurs rippled through the room.

The Montana Accord, a civil society group represented by a council member with voting powers, denounced in a statement late Tuesday what it called a “complot” hatched by four council members against the Haitian people “in the middle of the night.”

“The political and economic mafia forces have decided to take control of the presidential council and the government so that they can continue to control the state,” the Montana Accord said.

Haitian politics have long been characterized by secretive dealings, but many worry the country cannot afford further political instability as gangs lay siege to the capital of Port-au-Prince and beyond.

“People change parties (like) they’re changing their shirts,” said François Pierre-Louis, a professor of political science at Queens College in New York and former Haitian politician.

He spoke during an online webinar on Tuesday evening.

Like others, he said he believed that Jean-Charles Moïse, a powerful politician who was a former senator and presidential candidate, was behind Bélizaire’s nomination.

“Interestingly, Moïse, of all the politicians there, is the one calling the shots,” Pierre-Louis said.

Moïse, however, does not sit on the council. His party, Pitit Desalin, is represented by Emmanuel Vertilaire, who is among the four council members who support Bélizaire.

The others are Louis Gérald Gilles, Smith Augustin and Edgard Leblanc Fils, the council’s new president.

They could not be immediately reached for comment.

A document shared with The Associated Press and signed by the four council members who chose the new prime minister state they have agreed to make decisions by consensus. The document is titled, “Constitution of an Indissoluble Majority Bloc within the Presidential Council.”

The move prompted the Fanmi Lavalas party to issue a statement Wednesday calling it a “masquerade” and “conspiracy” to guarantee that PHTK “thugs and their allies retain power…and continue the tradition of corruption.”

“The Lavalas Family strongly rejects the betrayal scandal that occurred on April 30,” the party said.

Fils represents the January 30 political group, which is made up of parties including PHTK, whose members include former President Michel Martelly and slain President Jovenel Moïse. Meanwhile, Augustin represents the EDE/RED political party, founded by former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, and Gilles represents the Dec. 21 agreement, which is associated with former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who recently resigned.

Henry was on an official visit to Kenya to push for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country when gangs in Haiti launched coordinated attacks starting Feb. 29.

They have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that remains closed since early March and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates. The violence continues unabated in certain part of Port-au-Prince, including the area around the National Palace.

Haitians are demanding that security be a top priority for the council, which is tasked with selecting a new prime minister and Cabinet, as well as prepare for eventual general elections.

But some Haitians are wary of the council and the decisions it’s taking.

Jean Selcé, a 57-year-old electrician, noted that most of the council members are longtime politicians: “Their past is not really positive.”

“I hope their mentality can change, but I don’t believe it will,” he said. “They don’t really love the country. Who’s dying right now? It’s Haitians like me.”

Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, noted that some of the parties represented on the council are responsible for the current chaos in Haiti.

“It’s a contradiction,” he said. “Every time we seem to be in a crisis, we reappoint the same people and hope that they change their ways, but they do not.”

Raising the same criticism is Michael Deibert, author of “Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti,” and “Haiti Will Not Perish: A Recent History.”

He noted in a recent essay that the council is “dominated by the same political currents who have spent the last 25 years driving Haiti over a cliff, taking advantage of impoverished young men in the slums to be used as political bludgeons before – bloated on the proceeds from kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises – these groups outgrew the necessity of their patrons.”

More than 2,500 people have been killed or injured across Haiti from January to March, according to the U.N.

In addition, more than 90,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince in just one month given the relentless gang violence.

The repeal of abortion ban was passed 16 to 14 and is expected to be signed into law by Governor Katie Hobbs.

The Arizona Senate has voted to repeal the state’s 1864 ban on abortion, which would otherwise have taken effect within weeks.

The repeal was passed by the Senate in a 16-14 vote on Wednesday and is expected to be signed swiftly by Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. Two Republican senators crossed party lines to vote in favour of repealing the ban.

The Arizona House last week passed the measure after a handful of Republicans broke party ranks and voted with Democrats to send it to the Senate.

“We’re here to repeal a bad law,” Senator Eva Burch, a Democrat, said from the floor. “I don’t want us honouring laws about women, written during a time when women were forbidden from voting.”

Republican Senator Wendy Rogers said in casting her vote to maintain the 1864 ban that repealing the law went against the conservative values of Arizona.

“Life starts at conception. They got it right in 1864. We need to continue to get it right in 2024,” Rogers said.

The fight over the Civil War-era abortion ban in Arizona, a state sharply split between Democrats and Republicans, is the latest flashpoint on women’s reproductive rights in the United States. In 2022, the country’s Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion, leaving it up to states to decide the issue. Conservative-led states quickly invoked strict bans on the procedure within their borders.

Democrats across the US, confident that public opinion is on their side in supporting abortion rights, have sought to elevate the issue ahead of November’s presidential election. Arizona is a key battleground state.

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee that works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, said her party would capitalise on the “extreme nature of MAGA Arizona Republicans” who voted to maintain the 1864 law as Democrats try to flip the state’s House and Senate in November’s elections.

Rogers, the Republican state senator, acknowledged the political risks.

“Some colleagues would say it’s politically pragmatic for us to find middle ground,” she said. “We might lose the legislature, we might lose the presidential election. But it’s more important to do what’s right.”

Near-total ban on abortions

The 1864 law was revived by a state Supreme Court ruling on April 9, and unless the legislature intervened, it would have taken effect within 60 days of that ruling, according to state Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat.

If the repeal bill is signed, a 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become Arizona’s prevailing abortion law. Still, there would probably be a period when nearly all abortions would be outlawed because the repeal would not take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session, which is expected to be in June or July.

Planned Parenthood Arizona, a sexual health organisation in the state, announced it filed a motion on Wednesday afternoon asking the state Supreme Court to prevent a pause in abortion services until the repeal takes effect.

The near-total ban on abortions predates Arizona becoming a state.

Under the 1864 law, “every person” who participates in conducting an abortion can be held criminally liable and face a minimum sentence of two years in prison.

There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, although there is an exception when the pregnancy puts a woman’s life at risk.

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