Michel Martelly, a carnival singer with a colorful past who seized the mantle of change, is Haiti’s new president after storming to a landslide victory, preliminary results showed.
The 50-year-old faces the huge challenge of rebuilding the Caribbean nation, which was the poorest country in the Americas even before an earthquake in January last year flattened the capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed more than 225,000 people.
Martelly, with 67.57 percent of the vote, ended the dreams of former first lady Mirlande Manigat, who was vying to become Haiti’s first democratically elected female leader, but finished with a disappointing 31.74 percent showing.
The results, released late on Monday by the electoral commission, are not final because a period of legal complaints must be observed until April 16, but with such a large margin, Martelly’s victory seems all but assured.
His supporters engaged in peaceful celebrations on the streets of the capital’s Petionville area, though the US embassy reported gunfire from the festivities and urged its citizens to “stay indoors and avoid large crowds for tonight.”
Washington hailed the election results as an “important milestone” and urged Haitians to keep their demonstrations peaceful as the process moves forward.
It was an amazing turnaround for “Sweet Micky,” who was knocked out of the race in December only to be reinstated a month later after international monitors found massive fraud in favor of the ruling party candidate.
The bawdy entertainer was previously known for stripping and for ridiculing the government in satirical stage performances.
However, trading skirts for tailored suits, he led a slick campaign that succeeded in capturing the imagination of Haiti’s urban youth, the main voting block in a country where the average age is just 21.
He should now take office on May 14, after Haitian President Rene Preval, who has served the maximum of two terms allowed by Haiti’s Constitution, steps down.
Martelly has promised to tackle head-on Haiti’s institutional failings and counter its dependency on non-governmental organization handouts. He has also indicated he is eager to bring back the military, disbanded in 1995 after a history of coups and abuse.
More than 14 months after the earthquake, hundreds of thousands of survivors subsist in squalid tent cities, unemployment hovers around 50 percent and three in four Haitians live on less than US$2 a day.
After a perpetual cycle of political upheaval and natural disaster, the country of 10 million desperately needs to build viable institutions if it is to pull significant numbers out of poverty.
The international community, which pledged about US$10 billion in aid to help Haiti rebuild after the quake, has been reluctant to untie the purse strings until a peaceful transition of political power takes place.
November’s first round vote descended into farce as most of the 19 candidates demanded a new election before polls closed, accusing the ruling Unity party, Preval and the election commission of rigging the vote.
At least five people were killed in December after Martelly was adjudged to have finished third behind Manigat and ruling party candidate Jude Celestin, meaning he had not made the run-off.
After weeks of US-led pressure and a review by international monitors, Martelly was reinstated at the expense of Celestin, seen as Preval’s handpicked successor.
There had been calls to postpone the first round after Haiti’s first cholera outbreak in more than a century erupted in mid-October, prompting deadly riots targeting UN peacekeepers blamed for bringing in the disease.
Almost 4,800 people have since died, and with charities warning of an uptick in cases following heavy rainfall late last month, the health crisis will be one of the most -pressing problems facing Martelly.
Election squabbles were overshadowed in January by the shock return of former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who is now under house arrest facing a slew of charges linked to his repressive 15-year rule.
And then, just three days before the crucial March 20 run-off, Haiti’s first democratically elected leader, former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, returned from exile in South Africa.
Aristide, a shantytown priest who rose to power as a champion of Haiti’s predominantly Catholic poor, could have affected the result if he had endorsed one of the candidates.
As it turned out, he honored a commitment not to upset the delicate political balance, but the presence of two giants of Haiti’s scarred past is a potential powder keg for Martelly.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS