PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The Haitian Senate unanimously approved a longtime technocrat as prime minister Friday, hoping that a man with long ties to Haiti's political power brokers and the international community can lead this nation through its fifth change of cabinets in five years.
Planning Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is a political survivor who has held different jobs with at least 10 different administrations, including the military junta, both presidential terms of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, both terms of President Rene Preval and the interim government that came to power following Aristide's 2004 ouster.
He says he's managed to keep his name clean by keeping his head down, sticking to the task at hand and knowing to whom he answers.
"I want to believe it's because I have kept some ethics, that I've stayed in a certain frame of mind, I've accepted positions for which I was competent," he told McClatchy Newspapers an interview. "And the position was in sync with the morals I believe we should have in politics."
The lower chamber of Congress votes on his candidacy Saturday, and he is poised to present his Cabinet next week. He will replace Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis, who was ousted last week in a debate over not moving fast enough to solve Haiti's problems.
The question is not whether Bellerive, 51 -- a respected member of the fired Cabinet who is fluent in four languages -- will be ratified. It's whether the father of two daughters has the political stamina to maneuver through the turbulent waters that lie ahead and avoid the fate that toppled Pierre-Louis. "He's never been a candidate for any higher office, but he was always indispensable to all the people he served," said Marc Bazin, a longtime friend and official in several Haitian governments.
Outside Haiti, the international community and foreign investors are keeping a watchful eye, hoping this vexing Caribbean nation can limit the damage already done by the toppling of Pierre-Louis' government and keep the momentum needed to attract investments and create desperately needed jobs.
Under the circumstances, observers say Bellerive represents the best chance of accomplishing that. "He's somebody the international community believes they can trust," a foreign diplomat said on condition of anonymity because the choice is an internal matter. "He's very articulate; he's a good communicator. They don't always like what he has to say."
As minister of planning and external cooperation, Bellerive coordinates the lion's share of the more than $1 billion in foreign aid flowing into Haiti for investments in roads, infrastructure and social programs, as well as the allocation of the $150 million of investment projects financed directly by the Haitian treasury.
But if Pierre-Louis was the darling of the international community, Bellerive is one of its most vocal critics. He has criticized the lack of aid coordination, donors' broken promises and the hundreds of millions of dollars that pass through nongovernmental organizations without Haitian government input.
Fluent in English, Spanish and French along with Creole, Bellerive comes from political stock. His father served as director of public health in the late 1940s before taking a job with the World Health Organization. Bellerive lived in Switzerland, Austria, India, Belgium, France and elsewhere before returning to Haiti at the age of 27.
In a country where politics is a contact sport, Bellerive is a rarity. Some compare him to oil on water, coasting along for two decades, never too visible but never too invisible.
"I kept things mostly at a technical level while still doing the political choices when they needed to be done," he said.
He also was in charge of the 2000 general elections in Haiti's largest department, which includes Port-au-Prince. He quit before election day, saying he "wasn't comfortable with how things were going with the upcoming presidential elections."
Observers say Haiti's stability will be tied to how long Bellerive lasts in the job and how well he does within the space Preval gives him. Bellerive said he's keenly aware that when parliamentarians feel excluded, they topple governments.
"First, you have to listen, acknowledge that everybody is part of the problem and acknowledge that under that constitution, I am responsible to the parliament," he said.
Critics, however, say that has meant pandering to lawmakers by throwing money their way, an allegation Bellerive denies.
As parliament prepares to have the second of the necessary four votes before he can be installed as prime minister, Bellerive has left the negotiations of new ministers to Preval.
"The biggest challenge will be to continue preserving everything we've been building over time," he said. At the same time, he'll have to balance Haiti's needs along with the international community's wants -- stability, investments and job creation.
Washington, which has a lot at stake, is particularly concerned about the new government's ability to quickly deliver on job creation, maintain fiscal discipline reforms and fair and credible elections next year.
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