Want to send this page or a link to a friend? Click on mail at the top of this window.

More Special Reports

A SPECIAL SECTION:  Haiti since the January 12, 2010 Earthquake
                                                         
Posted August 5, 2010
                                       
                                

The Big Files: Haiti 2010 Candidates for Public Offices; Also, Their Criminal Records, If Any

 
DEMOCRACY (democratia, from the Latin), is not the equal of the office or tenure of the office of a dictator - neither, for example, of the far-right or the proletariat. Nor it is the act or ceremony of crowning a sovereign or a sovereign's consort. It is, rather, a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections. In a direct democracy, the public participates in government directly (as in some ancient Greek city-states, some New England town meetings, and some cantons in modern Switzerland). Most democracies today are representative. The concept of representative democracy arose largely from ideas and institutions that developed during the European Middle Ages and the Enlightenment and in the American and French Revolutions. Democracy has come to imply universal suffrage, competition for office, freedom of speech and the press, and the rule of law.

Serious decisions, in relation to national affairs, must not be guided by gut feeling, intuition and emotions, as unfortunately has long being the case in Haiti. Rather, they must be made on the basis of deductive logic or reasoning. Since the always dirt-poor Caribbean nation is a democracy, though fragile, the earthquake-ravaged, minuscule Caribbean nation's citizens indisputably have the right to beforehand be permitted to know - both, in the positive terms, the negative terms - as much as possible about a person or persons' private and public lives who have made their intentions known that they will be candidates for public offices. Only if the constituents possess the relevant information can they intelligently, honestly express their electoral sentiments - not only for quality leadership (the independent cause or variable Y), but a better future (the dependent cause or x1 variable), which they desperately need given the multitude of unwanted problems (not limited to blanket crushing poverty and endemic corruption), which unfortunately have long defined their lives.  

One of the plethora of candidates (an explosion) is hip hop singer and songwriter Wyclef Jean, who does not possess a college degree (critics rather say not even a fraudulent high school diploma). Nor does he have even residual experience in political and economic affairs. The latter, too, and many others are all requirements for serious political leadership, not celebrity president - a joke.

Mr. Jean can sing, he can dance, but can he lead, and ultimately can he deliver? World leaders only take seriously a president who is capable of changing, in the positive terms, the vast majority of the Haitian people's quality of life - from dirt-poor to something even less than working class. Otherwise, they do not open wide the big, fat purse, as they say in the vernacular, of foreign aid monies, which Haiti will principally be dependent (now, roughly 70 percent) on to pay for the items of its niggardly budget for decades. 

Do not let fear, for example, to be a "prison house" that constraints you from your capacity to reason, to act as responsible citizens. You see something, you know something, say something. As a result "everything is going to be alright," to borrow some of the poignant lyrics of the late Jamaican Reggae music icon Bob Marley. We urge both, Haitians and non-Haitians, to forward us any information they may have in their possession (or know about) concerning a candidate, candidates for public offices in Haiti. We will certainly not reveal to the public or any other party our source(s) of information, for example, for your own safety. Since we, in full, adhere to the many principles of the concept democracy, a contender for public office or contenders for public offices will have the right to go as far as disputing an accusation or accusations made against him/her or them, whichever applies.

SEND US THE URGENTLY NEEDED INFORMATION OR TELEPHONE US TODAY:


E-mail: letters@wehaitians.com

Telephone: 617-852-7672

Postal address:
Wehaitians.com
P.O. Box 390581
Cambridge, MA 02139 a
 
The candidates: Their private lives, their public lives 
 
candidates

CHESTER HIGGINS JR/THE NEW YORK TIMES

 Presidential Candidates: Posters for Lesly Voltaire, Charles Henry Baker and Jean Hector Anacasis on display outside Haiti's earthquake-hit hard National Palace, the ultimate, biggest prize in Haiti's politics, since the Caribbean nation is a republic, not a monarchy, for example.
                              
Pierre Armand (former presidential candidate)
Jacques Edouard Alexis (approved)
                                         
Yves Cristalin (qualified)
Jean Henry Ceant (qualified)
                                                          
Charles-Henri Baker (qualified)
                   
Mirlande Hyppolitte Manigat (qualified)
                        
Mathieu Dieusauveur (do not know yet)
                                    
Michel Joseph Martelly - stage name, Sweet Micky (qualified)
 
Judge Celestin (qualified)
 
Rene St. Fort (Disqualified)
 
Wyclef Jean (Disqualified)

Haiti's National Provisional Electoral Council

Qualified candidates (19) for president in Nov. 28 election

 

   
  • ABELLARD Axan Delson Parti «Konbit Nasyonal pour Devlopman»
  • ALEXIS Jacques-Edouard Mobilisation pour le Progrès d'Haïti
  • ANACACIS Jean-Hector Mouvement Démocratique de la Jeunesse Haitienne
  • BAKER Charles Henry Jean-Marie « Respè
  • BIJOU (Dr.) Josette Indépendant
  • BLOT (Dr.) Gérard « Platfòm 16 Désanm
  • CÉANT (Me.) Jean Henry Parti « Renmen Ayiti
  • CÉLESTIN Jude Parti« INITE
  • CHARLES Eric PRNH
  • CHRISTALLIN Yves Parti Oganizasyon Lavni
  • (LAVNI) JEUDY Wilson  Fòs 2010  (Force 2010)
  • JEUNE Jean Chavannes (pasteur) Parti « Alliance chrétienne citoyenne pour la reconstruction d'Haïti
  • JEUNE Léon Parti Konbit Liberation Ekonomik
  • JOSEPH Génard Parti Solidarité
  • LAGUERRE Garaudy « Mouvman Wozo
  • MANIGAT Mirlande Hyppolite Parti « Rassemblement des Démocrates Nationaux Progressistes»
  • MARTELLY Michel Parti « Repons peyizan » (Réponse des paysans)
  • NEPTUNE Yvon Parti « Ayisyen pou Ayiti
  • VOLTAIRE Leslie Plateforme Ansanm Nou Fo
 

Disqualified candidates (15) for president in Nov. 28 election

  •  Wyclef Jean (Viv ansanm)
  • Raymond Joseph Alcide (PDI)
  • Claire-Lydie Parent (Kombit pou refe Ayiti)
  • Jean Bertin (Parti socialiste haïtien)
  • Duroseau V. Cluny (Indépendant)
  • Olicier Pieriche (Parti reconstruire Haiti)
  • Kesler Dalmacy (Independant)
  • Eugène Jacques Philippe
  • Paul Arthur Fleurival (Voisinaj)
  • Armand Pierre Camaud (PPL)
  • Christophe H. Jean Bertin (Parti socialiste haïtien)
  • Gaudin Lavarice (VEYE-YO)
  • Saint-Fort René (Parti Réformiste National)
  • Voight Charles HenrY (Indépendant)
  • Rodriguez Mario Eddy Gabriel (Indépendant)
 
 
Soon, more on the candidates; continue to visit us
 
___________________________

*CREDIT: Information from answers.com was used in the preparation of this text

Analysis prepared by wehaitians.com's executive editor Yves A. Isidor, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
 
Our fund raising drive, we need your financial assistance
 
Wehaitians.com, the scholarly journal of democracy and human rights
More from wehaitians.com
Main / Columns / Books And Arts / Miscellaneous