Haiti's power brokers jockeying for position

The assassination of Haiti's president has thrown the nation into disarray, spawned shootouts on the streets and left citizens cowering in their homes. But behind the scenes, a bigger, high-stakes battle for control of the country is already accelerating.

The fault lines were drawn long before President Jovenel Moïse was killed. For more than a year before his death, the president had been attacking his political rivals, undermining the nation's democratic institutions and angering church and gang leaders alike.

Then the president was gunned down Wednesday — and the power play burst into the open, with the interim prime minister claiming to run the country despite open challenges by other politicians.

But even as that battle over who inherits the reins of government plays out in public, analysts say a more complex, less visible battle for power is picking up speed. It is a fight waged by some of Haiti's richest and most well-connected kingmakers.

How it will all play out is unclear.

The first to assert the right to lead was the interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, who called a state of siege immediately after the attack. But his legitimacy has been directly challenged by the country's last remaining elected officials, who are trying to form a new transitional government to replace him.

Eight of the 10 remaining senators in Haiti signed a resolution calling for a new government to replace Joseph. As "the only functioning elected officials of the republic," they wrote, they were the only ones who could "exercise national sovereignty."

The lawmakers declared that Senate President Joseph Lambert should become provisional president and that Joseph should be replaced as prime minister by Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon and politician who had been named by Moïse to take the position but who was not yet sworn in.

The others jockeying for control, behind the scenes, are a group that includes Michel Martelly, the former Haitian president, and Reginald Boulos, a prominent businessman.

In the meantime, Joseph and his fellow ministers have continued to insist that they are leading the government.