Haitian Prime Minister Quits, Raising Ousted Leader’s Hopes

Prime Minister Marc Bazin stepped down Tuesday, and ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said he hoped the move would lead to his own return to power within days.

The impoverished country, struggling with a two-year-old political crisis and a U.S.-led trade embargo, reacted peacefully to the news. The capital was crowded with pedestrians, street merchants and battered vehicles.

Soldiers guarded the vacant National Palace while Haitians awaited word from the army on who would replace Bazin, designated prime minister by the military a year ago.

The 7,000-man army has controlled Haiti since ousting the democratically elected Aristide in a September, 1991, coup. It has resisted intense international pressure for Aristide’s reinstatement; last week the United States stepped up sanctions against the hemisphere’s poorest country.

Bazin was brought in with a mandate to negotiate an end to the embargo and to resolve the Aristide conflict. But his resignation appeared more closely linked to internal politics.

Bazin challenged the army’s authority Friday, announcing plans to replace four Cabinet ministers, including two with military backing. On Monday, the ministers refused to leave their offices, and other politicians quickly withdrew their support for Bazin.

Bazin’s foreign minister, Francois Benoit, said he expected the army to name a more rightist government. He said a likely candidate was former provisional President Joseph Nerette.

Nerette, a fierce nationalist and former Supreme Court justice, was tapped as a figurehead president in the days after the coup.

Aristide, leaving an OAS meeting in Nicaragua, said he hoped Bazin’s resignation would lead to his return to Haiti, within the next few weeks, “possibly days.”