Ertha Pascal-Trouillot - Haiti Observer Blog

The year 1990 -1991 saw a woman adorning the seat of the president of Haiti and this was the first time it was happening in the history of Haiti. Ertha Pascal Trouillot was the ninth child of a family of ten children. At the age of 10 she was sent to be mentored under Ernst Trouillot, along with one of her brothers.

Judge for Many Years

Though she wished to pursue a career in science she was directed by her mentor to law and later into politics. He wanted to be with and this later led to the marriage of the two, even though he was 21 years her senior.

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The Haitian government is led by a president, who shares his/her executive power with the prime minister. Once elected by popular vote, the president will run the country for five years. After the term, the president could not run in the next election. He/she has to wait for five years in order to seek a second term. Haiti presidents can only serve for a maximum of two terms.

Not everyone can run for president as there are certain qualifications and requirements to be eligible for the seat. Only candidates with Haitian citizenship by birth can run for the position, as well as those who are at least 35 years of age. Jail sentence, loss of civil rights and lack of property ownership and residency can make a candidate ineligible to assume the position.

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During an interview with Valery Numa at Radio Vision 2000 this week, former Haitian president, Ertha Pascal Trouillot, was showed little reserve. She managed to give us some important facts during her government.

She was very hard on another former Haitian president. Ertha denounced a conspiracy created by former President Jean Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas group in the objective of murdering her.

She went into some details on the Coup D'etat orchestrated by the late Roger Lafontant one January 6, 1991.

Ertha Pascal Trouillot also blamed Jean Bertrand Aristide for not taking the opportunity he had at the time to reconcile the nation with itself and at the same time bring Haiti on the path of development.

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Despite the changing gender roles and the growing feminist movement, female presidents or heads of state are quite rare in Haiti. One of these very few powerful women in history is former Haitian president Ertha Pascal-Trouillot. Politics has always been said to be meant for males as power and control are often associated with being a man. But as time went by, women began competing with this notion and have been made leaders and politicians along with men.

Pascal-Trouillot was born in a suburb of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince in 1943. Her father was an iron worker while her mother was a seamstress and was the ninth child of their ten children. The future president acquired a law degree from the prestigious École de Droit des Gonaives and was a judge for federal courts for more than ten years. She then became the first woman justice of the country's Supreme Court. And in 1990, Pascal-Trouillot was proclaimed as Haiti's temporary president after the successful revolt against former president Prosper Avril which put him out of office.

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