VZCZCXRO4062
OO RUEHQU
DE RUEHPU #1661/01 2501740
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 071740Z SEP 06
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3967
INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHZH/HAITI COLLECTIVE
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 1211
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA 1053
RUMIAAA/HQ USSOUTHCOM J2 MIAMI FL
RUCOWCV/CCGDSEVEN MIAMI FL//OLE/OI//

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PORT AU PRINCE 001661 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAR 
DRL 
S/CRS 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAR 
INR/IAA (BEN-YEHUDA) 
TREASURY FOR JEFFREY LEVINE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/17/2011 
TAGS: PGOV PINR HA
SUBJECT: PREVAL HOME ALONE 
 
REF: PAUP 1597 
 
Classified By: Classified by Charge D'Affaires Thomas T. Tighe for reas 
on 1.4(d). 
 
¶1. Summary.   Over four months into Preval's presidency, he 
has yet to form a staff allowing him to carry through policy 
initiatives.  Preval confidante and advisor Robert Manuel 
serves as chief counselor.  Gabriel Verret, who appears to 
have grown in influence advises Preval on economic matters. 
Preval has no chief of staff and no spokesperson.  His 
administrative staff consists of his sister, a former 
minister, and an intimate friend.  He recently appointed his 
close advisor Fritz Longchamp to the newly created position 
of secretary general of the presidency to coordinate project 
assistance among international donors.  Preval contacted 
former presidential candidate Marc Bazin to help form a 
kitchen cabinet, though it is questionable if Preval could 
effectively utilize Bazin without further bolstering his 
personal staff.  Bazin notes that Preval will have to 
overcome his penchant for informality in order to have any 
hope of improving his government's efficiency.  End Summary. 
 
 
All the President's Men and Women 
---------- 
 
¶2.  (C)  With Preval having completed his fourth month in 
office, he is effectively operating with a staff of two 
advisors and three administrators, with no chief of staff. 
Former campaign manager and confidante Robert Manuel 
continues to function as Preval's right hand man and proxy. 
Manuel is at the center of Preval's efforts to deal with the 
security, though his title and his precise responsibilities 
remain undefined.  Manuel's Guatemalan wife and two young 
children continue to reside in Guatemala, necessitating 
Manuel's frequent absence from Haiti and complicating further 
definition of his formal role .  (Note Manuel has been on 
vacation in Central America for the past two weeks.  He had 
earlier complained to the Ambassador that Preval had called 
him back from the airport and forced him to cancel an earlier 
trip.  End Note.) 
 
¶3.  (C) Preval's other counselor, Gabriel Verret, a former 
USAID employee, continues to serve as Preval's advisor on 
economic matters and appears to have gained increasing 
authority and influence with Preval since joining  him during 
the transitions period.  Verret has been at the center of 
formulating Haiti's response to the Venezuela's PetroCaribe 
initiative and most recently worked closely with the 
ministries of finance and planning to draft the GoH budget 
and forward it to parliament (septel).  Varret told Econoff 
that he relies on a U.S. trained financial specialist in the 
ministry of planning for accounting and budget expertise; he 
otherwise operates with no other staff support of his own. 
 
¶4. (C) For administrative support, Preval appointed his 
sister, Jean-Marie Calvin, as his personal secretary. 
Preval's presumed former and perhaps current mistress 
Elizabeth Delatour (and sister in-law of Minister of Tourism 
Patrick Delatour, through her deceased husband).  Former 
Minister for Tourism Martine Duverson (in the first Aristide 
administration), reportedly serves as Preval's scheduler and 
chief administrator, though Embassy staff note that Mrs. 
Calvin is a more reliable point of contact.  According to 
visitors to the palace, all three are at the palace only 
intermittently.  Duverson reportedly still works out of the 
government-provided presidential residence Ashton house, 
rather than the palace.  Embassy staff normally contact Mrs. 
Calvin on matters relating to the president.  A number of 
palace visitors, including the Ambassador, note that aside 
from security personnel Preval is most often remarkably alone 
in the expansive palace. 
 
New Secretary General 
---------- 
 
¶5.  (C)  Preval announced in early August his appointment of 
former foreign minister and campaign and transition advisor 
Fritz Longchamps to the newly created position of secretary 
general of the presidency.  Though the government has not yet 
published the decree formally establishing the position, the 
deputy secretary general, Raymond Genty, told post's pol 
specialist on August 31 that he and Longchamps had received 
notification of formal approval of their appoinmtent by the 
cabinet and were prepared to begin work.  The creation of the 
position follows recommendations from the UN Development 
Program to appoint a government official to coordinate 
presidential initiatives with the  donor community. 
Longchamps, who was foreign minister during Preval's first 
term, had been one of Preval's key advisors during the 
campaing and transition period, and reportedly  earlier 
turned down a position in the cabinet. 
 
Call to Marc Bazin 
---------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Former presidential candidate and perennial 
government official Marc Bazin informed Polcouns that Preval 
requested a meeting on August 24 and asked that Bazin help 
him form a "kitchen cabinet" for support and counsel.  (Note: 
 Bazin expressed concern that he would be asked to become 
governor of the central bank, a job he did not want, and was 
relieved that Preval had another task for him.  Rumors about 
the central bank governor's imminent firing continue to 
circulate, and Gabriel Verret recently confirmed to Econoff 
that the GoH was unhappy with the director's performance. End 
Note.)   Bazin and Preval discussed a group that included 
Bazin himself, former Jean Claude Duvalier-era ministers Jean 
Robert Estime and Frantz Lambert, and former Lavalas Minister 
of Interior Jocelerme Privert.  (Comment.  Recently released 
from jail on his own recognizance, Privert, along with former 
Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and 26 other defendants, still 
await trial for their involvement in the alleged massacre of 
Aristide opponents in the town of La Scyrie prior to former 
President Aristide's resignation in February 2004.  Polcouns 
expressed amazement to Bazin that Privert would be included 
in a kitchen cabinet, in light of Preval's exclusion of 
high-level Aristide supporters from the government.  Bazin 
professed to be equally amazed, but explained that Preval had 
heard Privert, who is also a former director of the Haitian 
revenue service, recently expound on tax policy on the radio 
and was impressed with his presentation.  End Comment.) 
 
¶7.  (C)  At Preval's request, Bazin followed up their meeting 
with a written proposal outlining in much more detail the 
tasks to be performed by an expanded group of roughly 40 
advisors divided among eight areas of public policy.  Bazin's 
proposed advisors include current members of the government 
and an array of outside business and political figures. 
Tasks in Bazin's proposal include drafting policy white 
papers for the president, coordinating public outreach, and 
drafting the president's speeches.  After presenting the 
proposal August 28, Bazin reported that Preval had called him 
the following day to tell him how pleased he was with Bazin's 
ideas, and that he had shared the proposal with Prime 
Minister Alexis, and that he would contact Bazin to follow-up 
shortly.  Bazin had no further feedback as of September 6. 
 
Comment 
---------- 
 
¶8.  (C)  Bazin is positively giddy at the prospect of 
re-entering the inner-circle of power without having to take 
a job that he regards as beneath him.   Bazin's renewed 
enthusiasm aside, he offered useful insights into Preval's 
state of mind.  Foremost, he asserted, is that Preval craves 
informality and loathes structure.  Consequently, Bazin 
summed up, Preval lacks the ability to "formulate, 
articulate, delegate and follow up."  He recounted that 
during their initial meeting Bazin asked how he could help, 
only to have Preval counter by asking Bazin what help he 
thought Preval needed.  Nonplused, Bazin suggested he start 
by naming a chief of staff, an idea which Preval was 
unenthusiastic about.  Additionally, according to Bazin, 
Preval said that though he had all kinds of foreign advice 
from "Jeffrey Sachs, Chileans, and Argentines...foreigners 
don't understand Haiti.  I need Haitians I can talk to." 
 
Last -- and reflecting the Ambassador's most recent 
conversation with Preval that took place the following day 
(reftel) -- Preval seemed preoccupied with Aristide, asking 
Bazin for his advice.  (Bazin suggested that Preval travel to 
South Africa to tell Aristide personally that the political 
situation was too delicate for his return.  Preval responded 
that "the foreigners" would never stand for his visiting 
Aristide.  This was, we trust, Preval's way of discounting a 
monumentally bad piece of advice from Bazin.) 
 
¶9.  (C) Comment continued.  Prospects for any formalizing of 
Bazin's proposal appear questionable.  It is hard to imagine 
that the small disparate group that Bazin and Preval 
discussed -- Estime and Lambert do not even reside in Haiti 
-- could be of additional use with the paucity of staff 
resources currently in the palace.  Bazin's proposal for a 
larger group of advisors amounts to the formation of a 
parallel cabinet.  Alexis is by many accounts already 
unhappy with the current short leash on which he finds 
himself (and the corresponding broad, undefined authority of 
Manuel).  We doubt he would have much enthusiasm for setting 
up a structure that would further diminish his authority. 
Preval needs to expand the expertise available to him, and 
his appointment of Longchamps and outreach to Bazin are 
promising signals.  It is equally important, however, that 
Preval create a staff structure and corresponding working 
relationships with the cabinet that allow him to develop 
policy, explain it to the public, and see to its 
implementation. 
TIGHE