St. Kitts and Nevis' Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas and Jamaica's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in January photo in Kingston. (Photo by Erasmus Williams)

Rene Préval, who was recently elected President of Haiti; Portia Simpson-Miller, who assumed the post of Prime Minister of Jamaica on the retirement of P.J. Patterson and Dr Lowell Lewis, who was elected the new Chief Minister of Montserrat following general elections there last week, will be welcomed by host Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Dr Denzil Douglas.

According to the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat, Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community have welcomed the return to constitutional rule in Haiti through the election of a president and of parliamentary representatives in the course of an electoral process deemed by the people of Haiti and the international community as free and fair. 

New Chief Minister of Montserrat, Dr Lowell Lewis

The Senate and Lower House have recently ratified the candidacy of Jacques Edouard Alexis as Prime Minister designated by President René Préval. 

CARICOM Heads of Government in a statement congratulated the people of Haiti who through their patience, resolve and courage demonstrated their attachment to the democratic process by exercising their franchise to determine their representatives at the presidential and legislative levels.

The Caribbean Community said it looks forward to the election of local and municipal representatives so that the constitutional architecture of representation can be completed. 

President of Haiti, Rene Preval

With the return to constitutional rule in Haiti, and in keeping with the principled position it took following the interruption of the democratic process on 29 February 2004, the Caribbean Community looks forward to Haiti’s resumption of its place in its Councils. 

In keeping with the Community’s usual practice, as one of the Heads of Government elected since the last meeting of the Conference in February of this year, René Préval has been invited not only to take Haiti’s rightful place in the Conference on the occasion of the Twenty-Seventh Meeting scheduled to be held in St Kitts and Nevis on 3-6 July 2006, but also to address the Opening Ceremony.