Two front-runners have emerged from a field of 19 in Haiti’s upcoming presidential balloting, according to a poll released Tuesday by the country’s business community.

Former first lady and longtime opposition leader Mirlande Manigat and Jude Célestin, President René Préval’s handpicked successor, are neck-and-neck in the race.

Also, if the elections scheduled for Nov. 28 were held today, Préval’s INITE platform would win the majority of 11 seats up for grabs in the Senate, according to the poll.

Among voters with electoral cards, Manigat had 23.1 percent while Célestin, the former head of the government reconstruction agency, was second with 21.3 percent. But for likely voters, the two are closer: 23.2 percent for Manigat and 22.5 for Célestin, according to the poll.

“The people who are for Célestin are more likely to go vote for him than the people who say they are for Manigat,” said Reginald Boulos, chairman of the Economic Forum of the Private Sector, the business group that sponsored the poll.

The polls show that while Préval and his supporters still control parts of the base, they are weakened and “they will have to fight for it,” Boulos said.

The national poll of 6,000 Haitians had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.27 percent. It began Oct. 13, two days before the launch of the public campaign during which candidates are allowed to hold public rallies and run TV and radio ads. The final day of polling was Oct. 20.

This is the second poll released by the Forum, and the third done by the firm in recent weeks on Haiti’s presidential and legislative elections. The final poll will be released three days before the elections.

It shows that both Manigat and Célestin — he at a higher rate — are the beneficiaries of an increasing number of previously undecided voters who are now making up their minds. Undecideds have dropped from 22.4 percent to 7 percent in the poll.

Still, many Haitians remain unexcited about the vote as demonstrated by the lukewarm atmosphere at many of the public rallies, including one last week by Préval’s INITE platform. To date, it has attracted the largest crowds with more than 20,000 mostly young voters coming to a park in Croix-des-Bouquets to hear candidates, including Célestin, a low-key technocrat who rarely speaks in public.

In a distant third is kompa music star Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly. Previously tied with industrialist Charles Henri Baker, he leads among voters in Port-au-Prince despite hundreds of thousand of dollars of INITE billboards and posters looming over the broken capital.

Still, it remains a two-person race between Manigat and Célestin. Last week, Manigat won the endorsement of a group of powerful and well-known Haitian senators with the network to win her some support in areas where she is weak.

But observers say it also remains one where the dynamics can change as candidates appear at more speaking engagements, and alliances are formed. Also, there are potential spoilers and possible kingmakers, including Martelly and hip-hop star Wyclef Jean.

Jean, who was banned from running by the electoral council, remains highly sought after by both camps and has yet to make up his mind.

Also, a closer look at how the candidates are doing in Haiti’s 10 regions shows the struggle on the ground for Célestin and Préval. The platform is split with some members campaigning for INITE parliamentarian candidates, but not Célestin, the party’s official presidential choice.

Instead, they are throwing their weight behind former Préval Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, the assumed heir apparent until he quit the party in the face of objections to his selection by a number of INITE senators.

As a result, in places like the rural northern town of Dondon, both Célestin and Alexis are tied in first place among voters.

And in the Artibonite, where Alexis is from, there are the “friends of Jude” versus INITE.

Whether the opposition will be able to take advantage of the division and stop the party from winning both the presidency and parliament remains the question among candidates and observers.

With the election seemed poised for a second round — the first since Haiti ushered in democracy in 1987 — Boulos said “it’s healthy what’s happening.”

“There is fatigue … people want change. This is a natural effect of politics,” he said, adding that while Préval and his supporters show they still control the base, “they will have to fight for it.”

Posted via email from THOUGHT MERCHANT’S POSTEROUS | Comment »

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (AFP) - Haiti’s electoral board decided to push back to August 20 its release of a final list of presidential candidates, a statement released Tuesday said, leaving in doubt for now whether hip-hop star Wyclef Jean can run.

“Due to questions posed regarding some candidates, … the electoral board has decided to delay until August 20 the release of its final list of presidential candidates,” the board said in a statement.

The council had pledged to release the list by Tuesday ahead of the November 28 elections for a successor to President Rene Preval, as Haiti struggles to revover from a devastating January 12 earthquake.

Several of the candidates including Grammy-winning hip-hop star Jean have had their presidential eligibility requirements questioned at the electoral body.

Jean is one of 34 Haitians who have lined up to run for the presidency, a measure of the office’s powerful allure despite the widespread misery and seemingly insurmountable problems worsened by a January 12 earthquake that leveled the capital.

The vote is the first since the earthquake, which killed at least 250,000 people and left 1.5 million without homes. The winner will replace Preval, who is prohibited from seeking another term.

Pierre Thibolt, communications director of the provisional election council, earlier had told AFP the list would be released on Tuesday.

Security barricades had gone up around the council’s headquarters in Petionville, a Port-au-Prince suburb, amid rumors that the council will eliminate some of the presidential hopefuls, possibly including Jean.

The Grammy-winning former Fugees frontman has little experience in politics but casts his insurgent bid as a chance to save a country brought to its knees by poverty, mismanagement and the earthquake.

But he faces challenges on whether he meets residency requirements after having lived in the United States for years, and about taxes he owes there.

Actor Sean Penn, who runs a tent camp for the homeless in Haiti, and others have accused Jean of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars he raised after the earthquake for a charity he ran.

In a report Tuesday, the New York Times spotlighted a history of poor financial management at Jean’s Yele Haiti charity, including a 250,000-dollar payment it made to a television station that the singer and a cousin had recently acquired.

In a statement, Jean acknowledged “missteps” at the charity before the earthquake but called claims that 250,000 dollars were misappropriated an “outright falsity” circulated by disgruntled former employees.

“Unhappy former employees, old rumors and long negated claims are simply distractions at this crucial juncture, when my advisers and I need total focus on the Haitian situation,” he said.

His supporters have brushed aside the other concerns raised with the election council.

“We have proved that Mr. Jean had residency in Haiti where he is also a majority shareholder in a television station. The financial statements in the United States cannot be dealt with in Haiti,” said Joel Petit-Homme, one of Jean’s lawyers.

“The electoral office of disputes has already decided in our favor and now no political influence can stop Mr. Jean from seeking Haiti’s presidency,” he added.

Jean arrived back in Haiti on Saturday, and toured Haiti’s south before arriving Monday in his stronghold, Croix des Bouquet, near the capital, where aides said he was awaiting the council’s decision to begin his campaign.

In the streets of Port-au-Prince, the singer’s supporters have covered walls with slogans appealing to the country’s youth to support Jean’s candidacy.

Eight other candidates besides Jean face challenges on their qualifications to run for president.

Numerous opposition parties have refused to participate in the legislative and presidential vote schedule for November, calling instead for strikes and the dismissal of the provisional electoral council.

The vote is expected to cost some 29 million dollars, and will be mostly financed by the international community, which has promised to deliver 10 billion dollars over five years to help Haiti with reconstruction.

The World Bank, meanwhile, announced it hopes to raise 500 million dollars to rebuild and expand Haiti’s educational system, which was devastated by the quake.

It expects to disburse an initial 50 million dollars to repair schools damaged by the quake.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Haiti+delays+word+whether+Wyclef+Jean+presid…

Posted via email from THOUGHT MERCHANT’S POSTEROUS | Comment »

The Perils of a Haiti Election  

About 20 candidates have registered for Haiti’s presidential election, which is set for November.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the electoral council in the capital Port-au-Prince, to cheer on candidates just hours before the registration deadline on Saturday.

AP Interview: Wyclef Jean’s vision for Haiti

By JONATHAN M. KATZ
The Associated Press
Friday, August 6, 2010; 5:14 AM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — After the hip-hop party was over, the cheering supporters back in their tents and the speaker trucks parked for the night, newly minted presidential candidate Wyclef Jean sat down to talk business - promoting Haiti’s and defending his own.

The potential front-runner in Haiti’s Nov. 28 election told The Associated Press that he supports the U.S. and U.N. vision for rebuilding Haiti’s economy after its magnitude-7 earthquake - a plan that encourages private investment in factories, agriculture and other areas.

He also hit back at critics of his own personal finances, including allegations over his use of post-quake charity funds and the revelation he personally owes $2.1 million in back taxes to the United States.

“We can provide a way to get (Haitians) out of the mess they’re in. And the way that that’s going to happen (is) education, job creation and investment for Haiti,” Jean said in the wide-ranging interview Thursday evening.

He spoke in a Port-au-Prince hotel room as aides, his wife and 5-year-old daughter looked on.

The Haitian-born, Brooklyn-raised singer is attempting a difficult and potentially dicey transformation: From multimillionaire international recording artist to leader of one of the world’s poorest and most dysfunctional countries - and doing so through a pivotal and difficult election.

Among the best known figures in his native country, Jean - who left as a child - speaks American-accented Creole to crowds and New York-accented English at home. His estimated annual income of up to $18 million is more than 13,000 times more than the average Haitian sees in a year - assuming that person even has a job.

If he wins the presidency, the ex-Fugee frontman said he would encourage donors to invest heavily in education. He also endorsed the economic vision promoted by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy who is in Haiti this week. Those plans include creating jobs in the garment export industry, boosting tourism and building the capacity of Haitian farmers to reduce the nation’s chronic dependence on imports.

“President Clinton is focusing on the garment industry and all that. I think that’s great. But also agriculture is involved,” Jean said. “We can work both components at the same time.”

Among other potential investment targets he mentioned mining, an industry whose ramping up amid the rising price of gold and other minerals has sparked controversy in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Jean’s leap from entertainer to prospective head-of-state is also leading to some interesting transitional moments. After previously listing his age as 37, as a candidate he suddenly jumped to 40 years old. On Thursday he traded his urban hip-hop style for a dark suit, better to hide the rubble dust and handprints as he crowd-surfed to open his rally.

The worldwide attention that his presidential bid attracts also means scrutiny and criticism - turning the campaign into what Jean called a “combat sport.” He responded directly Thursday to a revelation published this week on the U.S.-based website The Smoking Gun concerning his unpaid U.S. taxes.

“First of all, owing $2.1 million to the IRS shows you how much money Wyclef Jean makes a year,” he said, pledging to publish an accounting of his finances online and to repay the money he owes.

The singer also fumed when aides told him that actor Sean Penn, who has been managing an earthquake-survivor camp in the Haitian capital since the spring, had accused Jean of not spending enough time in Haiti after the quake and misappropriating $400,000 of the $9 million his charity, Yele Haiti, raised after the disaster.

“I just want Sean Penn to fully understand I am a Haitian, born in Haiti and I’ve been coming to my country ever since (I was) a child,” he said. “He might just want to pick up the phone and meet, so he fully understands the man.”

Jean stepped down from his chairmanship of Yele on Thursday ahead of his run for office. The organization has been accused of pre-quake financial improprieties that benefited the singer.

Before campaigning can begin, Jean must be cleared to run by Haiti’s eight-member provisional electoral council. Among the requirements he must fulfill are proving he has never renounced his Haitian citizenship by holding another - namely, U.S. - passport; and that he has been a resident of Haiti for the last five years - which by most accounts he has not.

The campaign will argue that Jean’s status as a Haitian ambassador-at-large, a post he was awarded in 2007, exempts him from having not spent more time in the country of late.

If approval comes, Haiti’s particular brand of Byzantine and often brutal politics will really begin. Jean’s charisma and popularity in Port-au-Prince’s vast slums could draw comparisons - some favorable, others not - to the popular but divisive former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was flown into African exile aboard a U.S. plane during a bloody 2004 rebellion.

On Thursday, Jean took the stage at his rally as supporters sang a traditional pro-Aristide song, replacing the exiled leader’s name with Jean’s. Asked what prompted that particular tune, Jean replied he hadn’t picked it.

The singer ultimately sees himself as an advocate for Haiti’s struggling youth. Officially running under the banner of the Viv Ansanm party - whose name means “live together” - Jean is more heavily promoting his youth movement called “Fas a Fas,” meaning face-to-face.

“Even if I lose, I win,” he said. “It gives us an opportunity to be a voice to speak to government about what happens.”

Posted via email from THOUGHT MERCHANT’S POSTEROUS | Comment »

via npr.org

In announcing his candidacy for the presidency of Haiti in an interview with Time magazine, rapper Wyclef Jean cited Ronald Reagan and Vaclav Havel as precedents for the artist-to-head of state transition. Nevermind the fact that, unlike Wyclef, both Reagan and Havel had decades of political leadership experience before becoming president, the former Fugees frontman is certainly correct that the celebrity-turned-politician is hardly unheard of anymore.

In the U.S., aside from Reagan, there’s California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Al Franken. Former professional athletes Jack Kemp and Bill Bradley also both launched serious campaigns for the presidency.

Actors-turned-president include Joseph Estrada — the Philippines’ biggest movie star who was elected president by the widest margin in the country’s history in 1998 only to resign in disgrace three years later — and the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski who, along with his identical twin brother, former Prime Minsiter Jaroslaw Kaczynski, was a child star, appearing in the beloved Polish children’s classic, The Two Who Stole the Moon. (Don’t get any ideas, Olsen twins!) Icelandic comedian Jon Gnarr was elected mayor of Reykjavik several weeks ago and seems determined to run the city as an absurdist performance art project.

The list of musician politicians is quite a bit shorter. In spite of the highly-publicized non-governmental activism of rock stars like Bono and Bob Geldof, it seems like musicians have had a harder time making it in the arena of electoral politics. There was former California Congressman Sonny Bono of course (though he was also sort of an actor). Russian pop star Nikolai Rastorguev serves in the Russian Duma, though that’s taken by most as a sign of how unserious that body has become. Tropacalia pioneer Gilberto Gil serves in Brazilian President Lula Inacio da Silva’s cabinet, though he’s the culture minister which is a logical job for one of the country’s most celebrated artists.

The most successful musician in electoral politics may be former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, who currently serves as Australia’s environment minister. (Blur drummer Dave Rowntree ran for a seat for the British parliament this year but was trounced along with the rest of the Labour Party.)

The closest thing to a musician-turned-head of state in recent years may be former nightclub DJ Andry Rajoelina of Madagascar, who took power in a military coup in 2009 and still isn’t recognized by many of the countries in his region. (Somehow it’s not surprising that a club DJ would be better at leading a mob than winning votes.)

While musicians don’t have a great political track record compared to actors, it’s possible that that could change as the first generation of hip-hop stars nears retirment age. As Time’s Tim Padgett writes, “Hip-hop, more than most pop genres, is something of a pulpit, urban fire and brimstone garbed in baggy pants and backward caps.” Hopefully Wyclef, as a pioneering rapper-turned-politician, can use that pulpit for good.

Above from this link: http://n.pr/cS7XiM

Posted via email from THOUGHT MERCHANT’S POSTEROUS | Comment »