PORT-AU-PRINCE—Former Inter-American Development Bank adviser Ericq Pierre was rejected as Haiti's new prime minister Monday by lawmakers who said he had not given adequate proof he was descended from native-born Haitians.
Pierre's nomination failed by a vote of 51-35, with nine members abstaining in the vote in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. He had won overwhelming approval in Haiti's Senate last Wednesday.
Pierre was nominated to replace Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was fired by the Senate on April 12 after a week of food riots that killed at least six people. Senators said Alexis had not done enough to increase national food production and lower the cost of living in the poorest country in the Americas.
Pierre's rejection will force President Rene Preval to select another nominee.
Jean Beauvoir Dorson, chairman of the commission that vetted Pierre's passport and citizenship documents, said he had presented adequate proof to satisfy a legal requirement that his parents and grandparents were native Haitians.
"Ericq Pierre has been rejected for political reasons, not because the documents were not correct," Dorson said.
Pierre lacked birth certificates for his grandparents but submitted sworn statements from a local official who attested they were natives of Haiti. But some of those who voted against him said the documents gave the nominee's name different ways.
"We could not know for sure whether those documents were the documents of Ericq Pierre or of Pierre Ericq Pierre," said Jean Marcel Lumerant, another deputy.
There was speculation Pierre's rejection was organized by Alexis' supporters seeking revenge for his dismissal.
The vote came just days after slum leaders in Les Cayes, the southern city where the food riots began, threatened more violent protests if parliament did not move quickly to install a new government.
Soaring Food Prices
Haitians say the cost of some staples such as rice, beans and flour has doubled in the past few months. Many of Haiti's nearly 9 million people live on less than $2 a day and malnutrition is rampant.
The Caribbean nation is among a number of poor countries rattled by violence over escalating food prices blamed on growing demand in Asia, diversion of crops for biofuel, record oil prices and market speculation.
The unrest in Haiti, which began in early April in Les Cayes and spread quickly to the capital and other towns and cities, has hindered Preval's efforts to establish a stable democracy. Haiti has seen little but political upheaval and brutal dictatorship since it threw off French rule in a slave revolt more than 200 years ago.
Pierre, a 63-year-old agronomist and agricultural economist, has worked as a senior adviser to the Inter-American Development Bank in Haiti and Argentina.
Preval, who took office in May 2006, also served as president from 1996 to 2001 and is the only elected Haitian leader to serve a full term and successfully hand over power to a democratically elected successor.
In his first term, it took Preval 21 months to put a new government in place after then-Prime Minister Rosny Smarth resigned in June 1997.
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