Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Haitian Senate approves coalition cabinet
06-08-2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): The Haitian Senate approved late Tuesday a coalition cabinet under new Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who pledged to re-establish the rule of law in the impoverished Caribbean country.

"I pledge to be worthy of your confidence and to engage the government in a sincere manner to bring Haiti out of its difficult situation," Alexis said after a lengthy question-and-answer session with 26 senators ended in an unanimous vote to approve his new government.

The prime minister also promised "to work quickly with President Rene Preval," who was sworn in as president last month.

The meeting was broadcast live on national Haitian television.

Alexis now must present his government to the House of Representatives.

His coalition cabinet includes former ministers of ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide and members of the opposition.

A former Roman Catholic priest, Jean Reynald Clerisme, who once represented Haiti at the World Trade Organization, is to head the foreign ministry.

Two former ministers under Aristide in 1991, Frantz Verella and Marie Laurence Lassegue, have been named, respectively, ministers of public works, transport and communication, and women's issues.

Alexis, 58, served as Preval's prime minister under the president's first term, in 1999-2001. An agronomist by training, he also has held the post of minister of national education, youth and sports, in 1998.

He is a former dean of the faculty of agriculture and veterinary medicine at the State University of Haiti.