PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Garry Conille, who had been an aide to Bill Clinton when the ex-president was a U.N. special envoy to Haiti, has been confirmed as the country's prime minister.
Haiti's Senate confirmed Conille by a 17-3 vote, with nine abstentions, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
Conille, 45, had served most recently as resident and humanitarian coordinator in Niger for the United Nations Development Program.
He said he hopes to tap into his development experience to help the impoverished Haiti, devastated by a magnitude-7 earthquake in January 2010. "I want to get everybody excited about what Haiti could be," Conille told the Herald in an interview before Tuesday's vote.
"We've spent 20 years concentrating on our difference. If I could get everybody excited about what Haiti could be, and I can get (President Michel Martelly) to be the communicator and chief of what Haiti could be in a more structured and organized way, get the private sector excited, the population excited, get the civil society excited … I think we can pull this off."
The Senate vote followed more than eight hours of debate, as opponents argued Conille didn't meet the constitutional requirement to be prime minister because he lacked an electoral card and had not lived in Haiti during the past five years.
