1988-09-17: (Prosper Avril Overthrows Namphy in a Military Coup, the Third Change of Government in Seven Months, Haiti Cycling Through Leaders Faster Than at…

1988-09-17: (Prosper Avril Overthrows Namphy in a Military Coup, the Third Change of Government in Seven Months, Haiti Cycling Through Leaders Faster Than at Any Point Since the Presidential Carousel of 1911-1915): On September 17, 1988, Prosper Avril overthrew Henri Namphy in a military coup, the third change of government in seven months. Avril, born on November 7, 1937, was a career military officer who had served both Duvalier regimes. His presidency lasted until March 10, 1990, when he resigned under pressure and was replaced by Hérard Abraham, who turned power over to a provisional government led by Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, the first female president of Haiti. Pascal-Trouillot, born on August 13, 1943, was a Supreme Court justice who oversaw the transition to elections. The period between Duvalier’s fall in February 1986 and the December 1990 elections saw six different heads of state in four years, a rate of turnover that rivaled the worst periods of nineteenth-century instability and demonstrated that removing a dictator was far easier than building the democratic institutions that could prevent the next one.