Edrys Erisnor, Political Scientist

A piece of advice to Ms. Pierre Louis is to remember what has led to her confirmation as the next prime minister of Haiti.  The failure of both president Préval and Prime Minister Alexis to feed the people made it possible for her being the Prime Minister today.  At her place, even the lesser among the political amateurs of Haiti would accept this position only after having answered these questions; first, how could Haitians be rioting for food when the president and Mr. Alexis are both Agronomists? And secondly, how am I going to make a difference?  Without having answers to these questions, Ms. Pierre-Louis can only expect to play the worst role in the last episode in the tragedy of hope in Haiti. 

The tragedy of hope starts with a lame duck government since April of this year, an incomplete parliament (which by the way does not bother anyone), kidnappings, impunity to the resignation or firing of a government prosecutor and yet the Haitian people are hopeful that this chapter will end up with a smile that would set the stage for a brighter future; and that brighter future is absolutely contingent upon the willingness of the next government to make a difference.   

In the event that the Haitian parliament allows the process to go through, Ms. Pierre-Louis should set her priorities for the short time remaining in this administration.  There is no miracle about it. She should set what I would call an axis of priorities that would forcefully concentrate on Security, Irrigation and Electricity.

First and foremost, with security in place, Haitians would no longer look over their shoulders or having cold feet before going to Haiti and foreign investors would see Haiti as a country of opportunity in this century.  For Ms. Pierre-Louis to bring security to Haiti, she would have to introduce a politics that would bring the dignity and human worth in Haiti.  It would be foolish of her or anyone else for that matter to think that securing Haiti can only be done through arms and toughness.  It requires more than that.  This process must be accompanied by a politics of compassion; a politics that seeks to understand why someone kidnaps and kills and how to humanely approach the problem. 

Secondly, in my dictionary, irrigation is synonymous to crops growing.  One way to make sure that the Haitian people don’t send her packing is to invest and reinvigorate the Haitian irrigation system.  Thousands of acres of land are abandoned in the Artibonite Valley, the country’s main resource of crops growing, due to poor irrigation.  She must look at the first cause in solving the food shortage in Haiti and the first cause is nothing else but the lack of home growing crops.  The greatest nightmare to a country is importing 80% of its food supplies and so is the case of Haiti.  Failure to seriously consider solving the irrigation problem, Ms. Pierre-Louis can do herself and the country a favor by starting to pack up and leave Paco.

Third and not least, electricity is necessary to bring the country to a sense of normalcy.  Our lives, businesses, restaurants, gas stations and everything in our everyday life revolves around this kind of energy.  Unfortunately, electricity is still sort of luxury in Haiti in this day and age.  We can only hope that Ms. Pierre-Louis has accepted her new role with a plan to reduce the number of blackouts throughout Haiti.

It would be wise of her to know that she cannot bring too much of a change to Haiti, but if she chooses her targets wisely, as suggested above, she would be credited for putting the country to the path of development and the last episode in the tragedy of hope in Haiti will finally come to an end.

Mr. Erisnor can be reached at Cet e-mail est protégé contre les robots collecteurs de mails, votre navigateur doit accepter le Javascript pour le voir

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