A U.S. educated economist and former head of Haiti’s Central Bank assumed the presidency of the country’s embattled transition council on Friday, pointing fingers at the economic elite and blaming “the cannibal” of chaos Haitians are living in on the country’s collapsing economic system.

Haitian economist and former central bank chief Fritz Alphonse Jean took over the rotating presidency of Haiti's transitional presidential council on Friday, taking the top executive role in a country battling a devastating conflict with armed gangs.

The council tasked to prepare eventual presidential elections in Haiti swore in a new leader Friday, as the country continues to struggle with persistent gang violence. Fritz Alphonse Jean, an economist and former central bank governor,