By Joseph Guyler Delva PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 15 (Reuters) - Haiti's newly defeated nominee for prime minister said on Thursday that parliament rejected him because he refused to accept bribes in exchange for ministerial appointments. Haiti's lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, defeated the nomination of Ericq Pierre on Monday, five days after he won overwhelming approval in the Senate. Pierre, a former Inter-American Development Bank adviser, blamed the loss on his refusal to negotiate with corrupt forces over ministerial positions, accept envelopes of cash or support local projects likely to facilitate the re-election of several lawmakers. "My refusal to negotiate with them has led to my being today put out of the process by the Chamber of Deputies," Pierre told a news conference. "The term 'nation' or 'national interest' was never part of the messages received from the envoys that were pressuring me to negotiate in favor of their patrons." He denied assertions that his documents were not in order and said his candidacy was blocked for political reasons. President Rene Preval nominated Pierre to replace Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was dismissed by the senate on April 12 after deadly riots over soaring food prices. Pierre said he had accepted the nomination because he believed the country urgently needed top leaders who could work toward improving the livelihood of the Haitian people, many of whom live on less than $2 a day. "However, at the very beginning of the process, I was confronted with the forces of corruption," he said without naming any names. His nomination was defeated by a 53 member-parliamentary bloc called the Coalition of Parliamentarians for Progress. Coalition members have been accused of selling their votes or extracting revenge on the Senate for firing Alexis just weeks after the lower chamber had given him an overwhelming confidence vote -- accusations they denied. They said they rejected Pierre because he could not provide birth certificates showing his grandparents were native-born Haitians, and because his own identity documents submitted to parliament gave alternating versions of his name -- some as Pierre Ericq Pierre and others as Ericq Pierre. Pierre said he was pained by the April food riots and violent clashes between demonstrators and U.N. peacekeepers that killed six people. He said he had been prepared to "act fast and to realize concrete things" to reduce the high cost of living and reduce the violence. Many analysts say the impoverished Caribbean country could face a new wave of street protests and riots unless Preval and parliament act swiftly to install a new prime minister and cabinet to urgently address rising food prices and other problems. Preval could choose a new prime minister and submit the nomination to parliament for ratification, or he could resubmit Pierre's nomination if he could fix the problems cited by lawmakers who voted against him. Pierre said he would go back to his job as adviser for Haiti and Argentina to the board of directors of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington. (Editing by Jane Sutton and Eric Walsh)
ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUALS COVERAGE OF SCENES OF DEATH AND INJURY The bodies of Haitian children lie in the morgue of the main hospital in Port-au-Prince May 12, 2008. At least ...
