Exiled Haitian President May Accept Foe as Premier

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —  Exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has agreed to accept a leading opponent as prime minister, opening the way for a solution to Haiti’s three-month-old crisis, parliamentary critics said Saturday.

But Aristide supporters were less sure that a breakthrough was imminent, and cautioned that Aristide’s critics seemed to be ignoring the conditions he would set for such an agreement.

A populist priest who won Haiti’s first democratic presidential elections with two-thirds of the vote in December, 1990, Aristide was toppled in a bloody military coup Sept. 30.

Participants in a meeting Friday of about 20 leading lawmakers said they were told that Aristide now is ready to accept either of two prominent opponents, conservative banker Marc Bazin or Communist Party leader Rene Theodore, as prime minister.

“We learned during the meeting that Aristide has agreed to accept either Bazin or Theodore, that he will accept whomever Parliament chooses,” said Deputy Jacques Lafleur.

Both were proposed by the conservative-led Senate, which argues that the army will never agree to Aristide’s return unless he is “balanced” by an outright opponent as prime minister.

Until now, Aristide was holding out for Social Democrat Victor Benoit, an ally who enjoyed strong support in the Chamber of Deputies.

The lawmakers said they were told about Aristide’s change of heart by Western diplomats who are trying to mediate in the crisis, and from members of a six-man team of Aristide allies who visited him a week ago in Caracas, Venezuela, where he has been living in exile for most of the time since the coup.

“This offers us a solution. It’s what will enable Haiti to get out of this mess,” said Senate conservative Serge Joseph.

A diplomat close to the mediation later confirmed that Aristide had dropped his demand for a formal parliamentary session to consider Benoit, and that he was ready to accept Theodore. But the information that Aristide would also accept Bazin had turned out to be mistaken, he said.