O 121921Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0023

C O N F I D E N T I A L PORT AU PRINCE 000554

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/12/2019
TAGS: PGOV HA
SUBJECT: (C) FRUSTRATED AND SIDELINED, HAITIAN PRIME
MINISTER PIERRE-LOUIS SAYS SHE WILL RESIGN

Classified By: Ambassador Janet A. Sanderson, reason 1.5(b) and (d)

¶1. (C) In our farewell breakfast June 11, Haitian Prime
Minister Michele Pierre-Louis told me that she has
"unequivocally" decided to resign. She asked that this
information be closely held. Although she has set no date for
submitting the resignation, she intimated that it will be
soon. Increasingly frustrated and sidelined by President
Preval, she believes she is no longer effective or credible
as Prime Minister. While she has yet to inform the president
and has not discussed her decision with her inner circle,
Pierre-Louis emphatically stated that she will not change her
mind. The decision is made, she reiterated, what remains to
be determined are the modalities. I strongly urged the Prime
Minister to reconsider, reminding her of the urgency of her
agenda and her very real success in touching the average
Haitian and putting a face on government, as well as her
strong appearance at the Donors Conference. MPL expressed
pride in those accomplishments, but reiterated that her mind
is made up.

¶2. (C)  MPL said that her complicated relationship with
Preval, a friend of more than 30 years, has worsened
significantly in the past two months.  As evidence, she said
that he no longer takes her phone calls. He has stopped her
from accepting invitations to visit key donors and has tried
to limit her movement around the country.  She is not
included in his meetings with ministers, nor was she privy to
key economic decisions including the privatization of Teleco,
plans to privatize APN and EDH, and proposed road and
development projects. She has been kept out of the  minimum
wage issue discussions now underway in the palace.  MPL
described how the President ridiculed her plans to focus on
developing the long-neglected region of Haiti's northern
shore in the coming year's budget, a proposal widely
supported by the cabinet. After the proposal was tabled, she
said, Preval told a cabinet meeting that the purpose of the
budget is to build roads. The final straw, Pierre-Louis said,
was Preval's cavalier treatment of the FOKAL incident last
week when student demonstrators attacked the NGO in which she
had worked for more than 20 years.  "The President knows,"
she said, "how important that organization is to me, how I
built it up in Haiti, and he never once asked about it and
its people. He just joked."

¶3. (C) This is a Preval, Pierre Louis says, that she no
longer recognizes. If he does indeed have a vision for Haiti,
he is not willing to share it. She is highly suspicious of
the President's motives in managing the minimum wage debate,
noting that he has rejected suggestions from all sides to
come to some decision and respond to the bill, by signing it
or detailing his concerns. She strongly believes that Preval
is using this issue as the proximate cause to maneuver her
out, even though she has little influence on the matter. MPL
has decided that she won't stay around and "be a Jacques
Edouard (Alexis)". She will leave herself and go abroad for a
while. Pierre-Louis suggested that the relationship started
deteriorating when she returned from the Donors Conference in
Washington. "He tried to stop me from going...he didn't want
me to go to the Conference at all, he wanted his staff to
attend, and he was angry at my reception in Washington" but
she refused to characterize the President's reaction as
jealousy, only saying that he clearly wants someone else in
her place.

¶4. (C) If she indeed is set on resigning, I urged the PM to
carefully consider the timing of the announcement so as to
not give the impression that she has been forced out by the
demonstrators. MPL was sensitive to this issue. I also noted
that it was in no one's interest to have a protracted
political stalemate over her replacement. She intends to give
Preval the time to select and nominate a new candidate.  She
suggested that Minister of Plan Bellerive or Minister of
Agriculture Gue were waiting in the wings. Bellerive, she
thought, would be a good choice; as for Gue, she said, "he
wants the job so badly he can taste it." She added that
Preval had appeared to be grooming his old friend and
development advisor Robert Estime; however, with his new job
(as a USAID contractor), she wasn't sure where he stood. That
being said, she reiterated, she would not wait forever for
her successor. It is, MPL said, time to go.

5 (C) Comment. Pierre-Louis has come close to resignation at
least twice before in her difficult 9 month tenure as Prime
Minister and had to be talked back into the job.  Sustained
by her very deep affection for Haiti and her belief that she
could find a way to work with her friend and former business
partner, President Preval, Pierre-Louis gamely took on a job
she neither sought nor particularly enjoys. Preval originally
told interlocutors that he was pleased to have an old friend
at the helm of the Primature. However, the relationship badly
- and very visibly - faltered, undermined in part by Preval's
tendency to micromanage and his refusal to give MPL a space
to govern.  Pierre-Louis herself has been hampered by a
poorly organized, ineffectual office, mediocre staff and lack
of an independent political base. With her circle of activity
increasingly circumscribed, and the political long knives now
out, the Prime Minister's frustrations are very real. While
she may indeed hold off resigning for a while, I doubt she
can be talked back into the job this time.

SANDERSON