Recording artist and activist Wyclef Jean is considering a run for President of Haiti. Which is somewhat exciting. Yet kind of terrifying. If you were Haitian would you back Wyclef? You wouldn't if you were one of his former Fugees bandmates. He hasn't even made the run official, yet he's already lost the "Pras" vote.
Wyclef Jean will formally announce his bid for the presidency of earthquake-shattered Haiti within two weeks, sources tell us. The former Fugees star, 37, who's an ambassador under the current Haitian government, is ready to put his music career on hold to run for his homeland's top job. But the move will put him in conflict with former Fugees bandmate Pras (Prakazrel Samuel Michel), a Brooklyn native who campaigned for more relief after the deadly January earthquake, who's backing another candidate.
I, obviously, am not Haitian. I went to a fundraiser for Haiti once where all the nice people asked me if I was Haitian. (I do spell Danielle in the traditional French way!) But my knowledge of Haitian politics is limited to a basic knowledge of "Oh my God, that sounds awful." I know about the revolution, its leaders and of France essentially charging them a bill for lost land and labor after wards and how the world refused to do business with the newly freed colony out of not wanting to encourage that "wake up and kill your masters" sort of thing.
And I know about the various warlords the U.S. government has backed in Haiti off and on. (The U.S. has a history of counter-productive, half-assed meddling in Haiti.) And I know that the country is very poor, often marred by political unrest, that they're saddled with debt and the leadership is a bit of a crap shoot and has been for a very, very long time. Even at the fundraiser I attended, where a past president of Haiti was a guest, the evening was marked by the fact that half of the folks in the room were offended that the man had even been invited, charging that he was a crook.
That said, I don't know how I feel about this whole Wyclef Jean running for President of Haiti situation. It isn't that this is a "bad" idea, per se. After all, I lived in California for five years and we elected a former Austrian body builder and star of "Twins," Arnold Schwarzenegger governor. Former U.S. President Roland Reagan was a TV pitchman who played cowboys in movies. Why can't Wyclef run for President of Haiti? Yeah, he can be really annoying, but he created "The Carnival!" Whenever I get sick of him I try to remember that, play one of the 15 versions of "Gone Til November" I own and the urge to murder him passes.
The only thing that makes this unsettling is that Haiti has serious issues and needs strong, preferably not corrupt, leadership and Wyclef's record on corruption, both the kind involving morality and money, is a touch checkered. This doesn't mean that he can't still be a good leader. Many great leaders are flawed. But, this isn't some record company that needs a bit of a change up in CEOs. This is a country, ravaged by civil unrest, crime, natural disaster, poverty, disease and decades of neglect.
I would hope that he's serious, yet to do this, to run for President of Haiti, I would assume he is very serious. It would be irresponsible get everyone's hopes up only to go out as a hip hop flavored version of those who came before.
-- Wyclef Jean intends to run for president of Haiti, says a source close to the Haitian-American recording artist
Tuesday, August 3rd 2010 at 11:51PM
Jen Fad
Wyclef Jean Barred From Haiti Election By DEBORAH SONTAG
Wycleaf Jean after Haiti’s Electoral Council rejected his candidacy in Port-au-Prince on Friday. No explanation was given. A spokesman for the council, Richardson Dumel, facing reporters who had been standing vigil at the election bureau all day, read a list of 19 presidential aspirants deemed eligible and 15, including Mr. Jean, whose candidacy had been rejected.
But in a statement, Mr. Jean said he was rejected because he did not meet the requirement of having lived in Haiti for five consecutive years before the Nov. 28 elections. Born in Haiti, Mr. Jean left as a child for the United States and now, based in New Jersey, travels often to his homeland.
