By: Alejandro Kirk - Inter Press Service
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Mar 12, 1996 (IPS) -- The big problem with being prime minister of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is that just about everything requires urgent, top priority, must-do-now, can't-wait, top-of-the-list attention.
And this consideration must be given to most of the population. For the poor-rich equation in Haiti is 80-20. There's nothing in between. The Caribbean nation has virtually no middle class: the 20 percent rich are of the rotten-rich variety, the 80 percent poor tend to be mostly dirt-poor.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Mar 12, 1996 (IPS) -- The big problem with being prime minister of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is that just about everything requires urgent, top priority, must-do-now, can't-wait, top-of-the-list attention.
And this consideration must be given to most of the population. For the poor-rich equation in Haiti is 80-20. There's nothing in between. The Caribbean nation has virtually no middle class: the 20 percent rich are of the rotten-rich variety, the 80 percent poor tend to be mostly dirt-poor.
No wonder Rony Smarth is in such a great hurry.
Haiti's 55-year-old prime minister even manages to find solace in the paradoxes that forever torment this country of six million people which covers 27,750 square kilometres of Hispaniola, the sprawling island it shares with the Dominican Republic.
Haiti's 55-year-old prime minister even manages to find solace in the paradoxes that forever torment this country of six million people which covers 27,750 square kilometres of Hispaniola, the sprawling island it shares with the Dominican Republic.