Haitian lawmakers reject new prime minister

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Former Inter-American Development Bank adviser Ericq Pierre was rejected as Haiti's new prime minister on Monday by lawmakers who said he had not given adequate proof he was descended from native-born Haitians.

Pierre's nomination failed by a vote of 51-35, with nine members abstaining in the vote in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. He had won overwhelming approval in Haiti's Senate last Wednesday.

Pierre was nominated to replace Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was fired by the Senate on April 12 after a week of food riots that killed at least six people. Senators said Alexis had not done enough to increase national food production and lower the cost of living in the poorest country in the Americas.

Pierre's rejection will force President Rene Preval to select another nominee.

Jean Beauvoir Dorson, chairman of the commission that vetted Pierre's passport and citizenship documents, said he had presented adequate proof to satisfy a legal requirement that his parents and grandparents were native Haitians.

"Ericq Pierre has been rejected for political reasons, not because the documents were not correct," Dorson said.

Pierre lacked birth certificates for his grandparents but submitted sworn statements from a local official who attested they were natives of Haiti. But some of those who voted against him said the documents gave the nominee's name different ways.

"We could not know for sure whether those documents were the documents of Ericq Pierre or of Pierre Ericq Pierre," said Jean Marcel Lumerant, another deputy.