Wyclef Jean's uncle to run for president of Haiti
Wyclef Jean's uncle, Raymond Joseph – who is Haiti's ambassador to the US – tells the Monitor that he is running for president this fall. Will the hip hop artist and his uncle team up – or compete against each other in Haiti's presidential campaign?
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The Jan. 12 earthquake killed more than 230,000, displaced some 2 million, and destroyed or damaged 188,383 homes, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). While the earthquake only affected one-fifth of the island, it wiped out 80 percent of the economy, according to Joseph.
Skip to next paragraph“What lesson do we need more than we have to decentralize? We can no longer decide that everything should be inside Port-au-Prince,” he says.
Joseph credits himself with shepherding the Haitian Economy and the HOPE Act of 2006, which opened up US markets to tax-free Haiti textiles. In 2008, HOPE Act II extended the tax-breaks for 10 years, and in January 2010 it became the HELP Act and opened the US market up to many more Haitian products. “I want to make Haiti a more open society to US business,” he says.
Battling the outsider image
As for Haitians who will challenge his candidacy on the grounds that he is out of touch with a land where he has not lived for five decades, Joseph has a list of challenges for his critics.
“I challenge them to speak Creole as good as I do.
“I challenge them to look in my background and see all I’ve done for Haiti and compare me with others. See how all these years I have been working for my country even at a distance.
“I challenge them also to think about what the Haitian diaspora has done for the country. The Haitian diaspora has transferred $2 billion in remittances every year – that’s a quarter of GDP! Diaspora and Haitians at home are one in the same.”
That’s why, Joseph says, he will campaign to push for parliament to pass a law allowing dual nationality.
Joseph-Wyclef ticket for 2010?
Joseph says he wants to instill pride in Haitians, and to dispel the negativity that surrounds the island's image as the hemisphere's poorest country.
“This little country that people are belittling – it should be a foundation of wealth, a foundation of liberation, for the whole hemisphere,” he says. “In 1804, there were only two independent nations in this hemisphere: the US and Haiti, and only one stood for the freedom of all individuals. And we showed it in action. I want Haitians to return to that vision that they are a great people.”
Professor Gamarra of Florida International University warns that Wyclef's super-stardom alone won't win the election for him or for his uncle. "It’s not just a connection with a single individual that is going to make anybody president of any country," he says.
With Joseph now running for president, Wyclef will test that assumption, as he will no doubt be a part of the Haiti election this fall.
A big question now looming is: Will Wyclef play a supporting role or a leading role?
Will Haitians see Wyclef Jean take the stage this fall to introduce his uncle as the family's presidential candidate?
“I wish that could happen,” says Joseph. “We don’t have to wait too long to see.”
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