By: Haïti en Marche - Translation by HaitiAnalysis.com

The debate continued on Saturday [January 13th] around whether or not to maintain the position of 10 senators whose mandates come to term on Monday, January 14, and who would want to see it extended up to next May. Most of the political formations these parliamentary officials belong to, notably Lespwa, L'Union, OPL, la Fusion and L'Alliance have admitted the principle of the respect of the constitution.

In addition, at least 4 of the concerned senators already officially shared their decision to leave this Monday, on the occasion of the presentation of the report of the Prime Minister and declaration to the Nation by the President. Nominally, John Gabriel Fortunate (Union), René Antoine Samson (Lespwa), Ultimo Compère (Lespwa) and Maxim Roumer (Lespwa).

As for the prime senator of the West, Jean Hector Anacacis, elected for 6 years, he warned that all senators at the end of their mandate who will be spotted in the Parliament after January 14 will be considered as an intruder. Among the parties that hang on to the idea of mandates' deferment for the 10 senators, we again find the Rassemblement des démocrates nationaux progressistes [Union of Progressive National Democrats] (RDNP) of Mirlande Manigat that does not comprise any senator and the Artibonite Party of Senator Youri Latortue that comprises 2, of which 1 as a matter of fact is part of the functioning of the institutions' group.

A few organizations that were part of the former opposition against Aristide, of which l'Initiative de la société civile [Initiative of the civil Society] (ISC) consider that the parliamentary officials on a two-year term must be maintained in office until May. The person in charge of the ISC, Rosny Desroches, explains that they must keep their seat so as to facilitate the pursuit of the activities of the institution at large and to avoid an institutional gap. He insisted on the fact that the concerned Parliament officials had been brought to office for a mandate of two years in May 2006, (due to the delay in organizing the elections by the Latortue regime). This is, nevertheless, the situation of all others elected officials, including the president of the Republic.

Along this line of thoughts, the leader and former candidate to the presidency of the Union, Chavannes Jeune, warns that if we accept extending the mandate of the 10 senators, we will have to do it for all the others elected officials.

But Rosiny Disrates indicates that if these parliamentary officials should leave the senate on Monday, there should be a reduction of the quorum so that the parliament always remains functional.

The senate, that has a constitutional quorum of 30 members, currently operates with 29, after the death of one of the 3 senators of the Artibonite, Noël Emmanuel Limage, (Lespwa) in a road accident. The president of the Chamber of Commerce and of Industry of the Southeast and former candidate in the senatorial elections of 2006, Doctor Frantz Large, made it known that he wishes that the senators at the term of their mandate, remain in their seat only for the sake of respect for equilibrium between the executive and the legislature branches and pursuit of the democratic process.

Simultaneously, most of the grassroots organizations pronounced themselves in favor of departure of the 10 senators. The person in charge of the organization Balewouze (pro lavalas) Byron Odigé wondered: "What would these senators not be able to do in 2 years, that they could do in 4 or 5 months, with repeated absences in the Senate?"