Port-Au-Prince:Hundreds of Haitians chanted “Down with kidnapping! Down with dictatorship!” as they marched through the streets of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, bolstering opposition leaders who stepped up their demands that President Jovenel Moïse resign.
Opposition leaders labelled the arrests as political repression while critics accuse Moïse of trying to become more powerful.
“We’re all asking for the population to rise up,” said former Sen. Youri Latortue, one of Haiti’s opposition leaders. “We’re not backing down.”
The opposition coalition recently announced that another Supreme Court judge, Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis, had become Haiti’s supposed transitional president. Jean-Louis accepted the position, which no one in the international community has recognized.
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The opposition claims that Moïse’s five-year term ended on Feb. 7, but Moïse has reiterated that it ends in February 2022 since he wasn’t sworn in until 2017. Before that, a provisional president ruled Haiti for one year following chaotic elections marred by allegations of fraud.
The situation in Haiti has caught the attention of the international community, prompting a public statement from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti on Tuesday, a day after Moïse’s administration fired three Superior Court judges by announcing that they had been forced into retirement. Among the three is Jean-Louis and Yvickel Dabrézil, who was arrested on Sunday.