“While they keep us in poverty,” he added, “they are getting richer.”

Mr. Lambert, one of the 10 remaining elected officials in the country, is among those who aim to fill the void left by the murder of Mr. Moïse. After eight of his fellow senators and several political parties said he should become provisional president, he announced a week ago that he would be sworn in by parliament.

Then, he quickly postponed.

While he had explained in a tweet that the decision had been to allow all senators to be present for the nomination on Sunday, he said the real reason was pressure from US diplomats.

Rather than a consensus, he said, the small group of international actors imposed a “unilateral proposal”.

“They always say the solution must be Haitian, but it is not a Haitian solution,” said Mr. Lambert, a powerful politician first elected in 1990, who grew up desperately poor in southern Haiti. , one of the 11 children of an illiterate fisherman. and mother street vendor.

The risk of allowing decisions to be guided by foreign powers, he said, was an additional unease.

“Ninety-five to ninety-seven percent of political parties will not accept this. And if they do not accept this unilateral proposal, it is certain that there will be no elections, ”he declared. “Even if there are elections, the results will be denied, and Haiti will continue on this spiral of instability.

The Core Group’s role in the Haitian government reshuffle came as a slap in the face of the Commission, a gathering of civil society groups and political parties with over 150 members, which held marathon meetings over the weekend to determine publicly what kind of government transition they would like to see.

The scene was one of participatory democracy, with groups debating and voting by show of hands on proposals including how long the transitional government should last and what form it should take.