Haitian President Jovenel Moise has appointed nine members to a provisional electoral council tasked with preparing a constitutional referendum and organizing local, municipal, legislative and presidential elections in the Caribbean country.

Moise has ruled the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation by decree since mid-January and in recent weeks renewed protests against his leadership have flared up.

The appointments to the provisional electoral council published on Friday in the government's newspaper are unlikely to placate Moise's opponents who argue he has failed to control corruption, crime and economic decline.

An anti-government demonstration by Haitians calling for Moise's ouster and other changes is planned for Sunday; earlier protests have often been violent and led to deaths.

It is not clear what the constitutional referendum will entail but Moise has previously said the powers of the president needed to be strengthened.

The presidency was weakened in Haiti's 1987 Magna Carta due to a mistrust of strong figureheads in the wake of the Duvalier family dictatorship, which was notorious for human rights abuses and corruption.

Critics say previous constitutional changes went too far, delivering too much power to parliament and have made it hard to govern. Haiti has had 15 presidents in the past 33 years.

There is now wide agreement among politicians and analysts in Haiti on the need for constitutional reform, even if they do not depict it as a "silver bullet" for the country's problems.

"The constitution has been amended a few times already but the structure simply does not give the needed results, it is one of the causes of the political instability in this country," said one Haiti-based western diplomat.

The diplomat said one necessary change to foster greater political stability and save money was to institute elections every five years rather than every two years.

Yet many opposition politicians do not think Moise, who has faced fierce anti-government protests over graft allegations, galloping inflation and crime over the past year, is the right person to lead constitutional reform and are unlikely to join a unity government.

"It is illusory to believe a president who is rejected by the people could change the constitution," said Andre Michel, a politician with the opposition Democratic and Popular Sector.

But Moise's camp and others in the international community have made it clear they see an opportunity to get around what they see as parliament's "obstructionism" and get things done. The United States government this week reiterated a strongly worded call for Moise and other political forces to work together and arrange the elections.

Moise has said he wants to break a "decades-long cycle of political crises" and could use a referendum to push through the overhaul of the constitution if he has no parliament to approve it.

The president can try to carry out constitutional reform without broad backing given he started ruling by decree in January but it could lack legitimacy and spark new unrest.

Among the new members in the provisional electoral council, there are no representatives of key sectors instructed by the constitution such as the Episcopale Conference, the University Council, the Association of Journalists and others.

The appointments will likely be met with more resistance from the different opposition groups, united in their discontent over the government of Moise, a former banana exporter who took office in 2017.

(With input from Reuters)