By TRENTON DANIEL Associated Press
Posted:
05/12/2012
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In a country where the news
is typically bad, if not catastrophic, many people in Haiti look at the
past year under a musician-turned-president with guarded surprise.
Yes, parliament and President Michel Martelly were in a standoff that hobbled government much of the past 12 months. Yes, less than a quarter of the population has a formal job. And yes, cholera and many other problems still haunt the country.
Yet six of the most visible displaced-persons camps that sprang up after the 2010 earthquake have been cleared and several are back to being public plazas; renovations are far along at the international airport; a sprinkling of new hotels and shops have begun to emerge across the capital's otherwise ruined landscape; and in a country where free education is rare, the government, for the first time, has covered school tuition for 1 million children .
It's hardly a Golden Age. But it's not bad either for a leader who had never held political office and was best known for often-raunchy musical performances before he took office a year ago Monday. The achievements have come with a parliament so dominated by the party of the man Martelly defeated in his run for president that lawmakers stonewalled his attempts to appoint a prime minister and Cabinet for three-quarters of the year.
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