PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 12 (Reuters) - Haiti's parliament rejected former Inter-American Development Bank adviser Ericq Pierre as the country's new prime minister on Monday, more than a month after violent protests over food prices that triggered the dismissal of his predecessor.

Pierre's nomination failed by a vote of 51 against and 35 for, with nine members abstaining in the vote in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies.

He had won overwhelming approval in a vote in Haiti's Senate on Wednesday.

Pierre was nominated to replace Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was fired by the Senate on April 12 after a week of food riots that killed at least six people. Senators said Alexis had not done enough to ramp up national food production and lower the cost of living in the poorest country in the Americas. (Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva; Editing by Jane Sutton and Todd Eastham)

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