PORT-AU-PRINCE. Joseph Lambert, leader of the Senate of Haiti, was chosen as interim president of the country by his colleagues in the upper house of Parliament in Port-au-Prince. Lambert himself announced it to the Miami Herald, explaining that of the ten senators who still sit in the House of thirty seats, 8 voted for him, two abstained “only because they are not in the country”. The mandates of most Haitian lawmakers expired in January 2020 and their seats remained vacant due to the cancellation of the October 2019 general election. No deputy still in office sits in the lower house of parliament. On social media, Lambert expressed his “humble gratitude” to the political institutions that expressed their support for him, and expressed his intention to favor a democratic transition of power in the country.
The situation of the interim prime minister also remains confused: the neurosurgeon Ariel Henry, appointed to the post by Moise, should have taken the oath on Wednesday but did not do so due to the ambush aimed at the president. Meanwhile, Claude Joseph, foreign minister and former interim premier who was to be succeeded by Henry, has in fact given the post of acting head of the acting interim government and in recent days has given speeches, kept contacts with other countries, as well as signed decrees .