Celebrity Mound

Haitian President Rene Preval met with presidential hopeful Wyclef Jean for more than two hours on Thursday, touching off a new round of speculation as to whether the singer will be allowed to run in Nov. 28 elections.

Jean told The Associated Press that he felt the exchange with Preval was positive.

“I feel good,” the hip hop artist and former Fugees frontman said. “I feel that the president that I voted for five years ago is the same person that was sitting in front of me today.”

He said he was hopeful that an electoral council weighing his candidacy will rule that he can run.

“It looks like it’s leaning that way,” he said.

Several hours after the meeting, Jean posted a photo on his Twitter account of him shaking hands with Preval, who is not allowed to run for re-election.

Earlier in the week, Jean said he had received death threats. Jean said Preval expressed concern and offered him security.

The singer and several dozen other presidential hopefuls are scheduled to find out Friday if the country’s electoral council allows them to run for office.

The council, which is known as the CEP, was supposed to release the presidential candidate list on Tuesday, but postponed the decision.

Haitians are watching the election closely; whoever is elected will preside over reconstruction of the earthquake battered, impoverished country.

For several days, Haitians, bloggers and international media have speculated whether Jean will be on the list. He was born in Haiti but moved to New York when he was nine. Under Haitian law, candidates for president must reside in the country for five years prior to taking office. Jean contends he meets the requirements, and has hired lawyers to defend his case.

A spokesman for the CEP, Richardson Dumel, said Thursday evening that the list of candidates “is not yet final” and added that he cannot disclose who has made the cut.

Late Thursday night, about 500 Wyclef supporters gathered at the entrance to the CEP, which is housed in what was once a Gold’s Gym.

“We are here to make sure that the CEP gives out a fair result and for Wyclef to participate in the election,” said protester Jean Renel.

Jean added that Preval told him he wanted to “meet with every possible presidential candidate,” and called for a peaceful campaign ahead of the vote.

A call to Preval’s press office was not returned.

Hip hop artist and presidential hopeful Wyclef Jean said Saturday that as leader he would work to change Haiti’s constitution to allow dual citizenship and give many Haitians living abroad the right to vote in their homeland.

The issue is central in Haiti where hundreds of thousands have emigrated to flee poverty and the money they send to relatives back home is a vital source of income in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.

Currently, Haitians who emigrate must renounce their Haitian citizenship if they become citizens of another country, making them unable to vote or run for office in their homeland. Jean himself left Haiti for New York City when he was nine, but never sought U.S. citizenship.

The former Fugees frontman told The Associated Press that his presidency would be a “bridge” between the Haitians abroad and those living in the country.

“The future is dual citizenship,” he said, adding that many countries, including the neighboring Dominican Republic, allow citizens to hold two passports.

Haitians abroad “should have the right to vote in their country,” especially since they send billions in remittances to family members.

“If they are the ones who keep this country alive, they should have some kind of say on what kind of government structure there is,” the 40-year-old singer said.

Jean arrived in Haiti after giving a concert in Belgium. He said it might be one of his last performances for five years if elected.

The singer, who appeared relaxed and was wearing a blue Adidas track suit and headphones around his neck, spoke to AP at the main airport in Port-au-Prince. He touched on issues of security, former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide and on what being a celebrity has taught him about politics.

“Celebrity has taught me that politics is politricks,” he said. “The fact that I’m coming with this with fresh eyes but not naive ears, I think that’s a good start.”

But he spent most of the interview discussing the Haitian Diaspora, concentrated mainly in Miami, New York, Paris and Montreal.

People in Haiti have long relied on family and friends abroad to make ends meet. Remittances are the main source of income in the country of more than 9 million people, 70 percent of whom are unemployed and 90 percent of whom live in poverty.

According to a survey for the Inter-American Development Bank, 33 percent of Haitians receive cash from abroad and nearly 75 percent of the money is spent on food, housing, utilities and clothing. Food and other gifts are also sent.

The average remittance in Haiti is about $150 and those who receive them typically get about 10 transfers a year, for an average total of $1,500, the IDB survey shows. A Haitian’s per-capita income in 2008 was about $1,300, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Jean noted that over a five-year period, the remittances total almost the same amount that has been so far pledged by donors to help reconstruct Haiti.

“To save the country, it’s not just going to take aid,” he said. “It’s going to take investment. That’s the message.”

To be sure, Jean himself has a big hurdle to clear before he actually campaigns for office.

An eight-member provisional electoral council is scheduled to decide Tuesday whether Jean will even be listed on the Nov. 28 presidential ballot. According to the country’s constitution, Haitian presidents must have lived in the country at least five consecutive years before election day.

During the interview with the AP, Jean also said that he will govern in Creole and that he is going to hire a French tutor. Politicians in Haiti traditionally speak mainly Creole and French – the latter for many things being the language of government in Haiti. Jean’s American-accented Creole and lack of French are constant reminders he did not grow up here.

When asked whether he would allow Aristide – who won elections in 1990 and 2000 only to be ousted twice first by a coup and then a rebellion – back into the country, Jean was circumspect.

“I look forward to the return of everyone,” he said.

He also addressed Haiti’s notorious corruption by saying that he wants to pay people a minimum wage and pay public servants on time.

“I will exercise my right as commander in chief to fight all forms of corruption,” he said.

And he admitted that he is going to have to find new lyrics to one of his popular songs, “If I Was President,” where he sings that he will “get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, and buried on Sunday.”

“I think in Haiti you have to care about your security,” he said, just before climbing into an armored SUV. “That song for me was a tounge-in-cheek situation. In the next two months, I’m going to make sure I remix this song.”

Street star. Scandal-plagued aid director. Ex-Fugees hip hop frontman. The moment he filed his candidacy, Wyclef Jean became the most famous – and thus potentially most powerful – candidate in Haiti’s critical post-earthquake presidential election.

But for all his renown as a musician, charity provider and above all Haitian-born success story, a stark fact remains the morning after: Few in this impoverished and often rudderless country know who he really is, what he stands for, or what is driving him to seek the presidency.

He has compared his candidacy to that of U.S. President Barack Obama and says he wants to build Haiti’s economy principally by attracting foreign investment – yet his campaign borrows songs, style and support from the populist liberation theologian and exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

And before these questions even come into play his celebrity-driven campaign – he has promised to bring 50 Cent to Haiti – must deal with the biggest question surrounding the 40-year-old singer: Has Jean, whose parents took him to Brooklyn as a young child, lived long enough in Haiti to claim its most important job?

“I started coming to Haiti after the President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was taken outside of Haiti (in 2004),” Jean told The Associated Press in an interview after filing his candidacy Thursday. “What I did was I went into the slums and started with kids inside of the roughest communities.”

Haitian presidents must have lived at least five consecutive years in the country leading up to election day, slated this year for Nov. 28. By nearly all measures Jean has not. As the eight-member provisional electoral council spends the next 12 days verifying candidates’ credentials the singer’s campaign will argue his 2007 appointment as an ambassador-at-large exempts him from the requirement.

Some on the streets of this seaside, sugar-growing town west of Port-au-Prince are not convinced.

“The constitution says you have to spend five years in the country. Did he? I don’t think he did,” said Billy Francois, 38, who sells sundries from under a roadside tarp in Leogane, which was almost entirely destroyed by the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake that left a government-estimated 300,000 people dead.

The father of three said he was not opposed to Jean, but that neither he nor other potential candidates appear ready to tackle Haiti’s rampant unemployment and crime. “I’ve been voting since 1990 and nobody has done anything for me,” he said.

Jean’s outsider status – he speaks English far better than Creole and left the country Friday to take his wife and 5-year-old daughter home to New Jersey – lends itself to debate.

Some say an outsider would introduce a new style of politics; others that it would guarantee of a weak, out-of-touch head of state. Jean fueled dreams by making it out of Haiti and striking it very, very rich – he makes up to $18 million a year, some of which he brought back through his charity, Yele Haiti.

“I will vote for Wyclef because he will develop this country. I’ve seen what he’s done before. Whenever the country is affected by something, he is always present,” said Eric Keatant, a 24-year-old engineering student relaxing in a Kobe Bryant jersey.

But after years of skating by with little scrutiny, the post-quake attention turned up a string of alleged improprieties at Jean’s Yele charity including allegations that it paid Jean himself to perform at fundraising events, bought advertising air time from a television station he co-owns and gave lavish salaries to staff.

Jean resigned as the group’s chairman on Thursday, hours before formally starting his candidacy. He has denied intentional wrongdoing and said the aid group hired a new accounting firm to oversee $9 million in post-quake fundraising, of which $1.5 million has been spent.

There are questions about his personal finances as well. The Smoking Gun website reported Jean owes $2.1 million in back taxes to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. He told AP that the money would be repaid and his finances made public within days.

In a country where corruption is always a concern, those matters are not likely to go away soon.

If the singer gets on the ballot he will face a crowded and sharp-elbowed field.

Another front-runner is expected to be ex-Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, who served under President Rene Preval until being sacked by the Senate during riots fueled by high food prices. He has the backing of Preval’s newly formed Unity party.

Many of Jean’s own advisers within the Viv Ansanm party also support the candidate of an allied party: architect and reconstruction master planner Leslie Voltaire.

Former Prime Minister Yvone Neptune is expected to run, as is former First Lady Mirlande Manigat.

Already registered is a musician of almost equal popularity to Jean in Haiti, Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, who secured the endorsement of Jean’s former Fugees bandmate Pras Michel.

For two decades after the 1986 fall of the dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Haitian politics were essentially defined by the split between pro-elite and business candidates and the populism of Aristide, an ex-priest who won elections in 1990 and 2000 only to be ousted twice first by a coup and then a rebellion.

Jean does not fit neatly in either category.

After Aristide’s 2004 overthrow the singer positioned himself as a peacemaker between gangs who supported Aristide and heavily armed rebels. Two years later he supported Preval, seen at the time as the pro-Aristide candidate. Preval later broke with Aristide’s supporters.

In his interview with AP, Jean praised former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s vision for Haiti’s economy and said he would also work to attract foreign investment in agriculture, mining and the garment export industry – positions which Clinton readily admits will make Haiti’s elites richer while growing a middle class.

But Jean’s rally earlier in the day resembled nothing so much as a pro-Aristide demonstration, with supporters given gas money to come up from the slums. The crowd even broke into a standard Aristide protest song with Jean’s name substituted for the exiled leader.

Clinton, who co-chairs the international commission overseeing a pledged $5.3 billion in reconstruction aid to Haiti, praised Jean but said he wanted to stay out of Haitian politics as the campaign season heats up.

“I consider him a friend of mine,” Clinton, who as president restored Aristide to power, told The Associated Press on Friday. “I also have a high regard for the former prime minister (Alexis) … I just want them to have a good election and I want it to reinforce, not undermine the reconstruction of the country.”

Aristide, who lives in South African exile, has not endorsed a candidate. His Fanmi Lavalas party is expected to be banned from the race.

For people on the streets of Leogane, such political debates pale in comparison to their immediate needs for food, security and post-quake shelter.

Excellence Silvianise, a 36-year-old mother of two, said the government must lead the way if Haiti will escape poverty. “Our parents didn’t leave us anything at all. We have nothing to work with.”

Wyclef Jean’s planned run for Haiti’s presidency is bound to make entertainment headlines, but the hip-hop artist’s brother knows trying to take charge of this earthquake-devastated and politically unstable country is a deadly serious affair.

Schoolhouse charts of past leaders are crowded with monthslong presidencies and group shots of the military juntas that overthrew them. Heads of state have been flown into exile, crowned themselves emperor or been killed more often than they have completed constitutional five-year terms. One president was torn limb from limb by an angry mob.

Whoever wins the Nov. 28 election will face the Herculean task of rebuilding from the Jan. 12 magnitude-7 earthquake that killed a government-estimated 300,000 people while managing billions in international reconstruction dollars amid feuding officials, families and an estimated 1.6 million earthquake homeless, all hungry – some more literally than others – for their share.

Jean is expected to announce his bid for the presidency on Thursday from Haiti.

After the Associated Press first reported that an announcement was coming, the singer’s brother, Samuel Jean, said the Haitian-American family was going into the process with its eyes open and breath held.

“It’s not something that was taken lightly, it’s not a joke, it’s something very, very serious,” the younger Jean said by phone from his consultancy office in Los Angeles. “It is different for us, but we are proud of him and we are going to support him in any way we can.”

The former Fugee was born on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince but grew up in Brooklyn. His published age is 37, but his 39-year-old brother said that in fact Wyclef is likely 40, ascribing the confusion in part to their history as immigrants and Haiti’s often confusing record-keeping.

Scores of candidates are expected to compete for the presidency in the November contest. Among them is Jean’s uncle Raymond Joseph, who is Haiti’s ambassador in Washington. Other likely candidates include former prime ministers, mayors and another popular Haitian musician, Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly.

Former Chamber of Deputies leader Pierre Eric Jean-Jacques told the AP the hip hop artist will run as part of his coalition in the election. Jean’s brother said he could not immediately confirm what party the singer would run with.

Controversy already surrounds the election, as opponents accuse President Rene Preval of stacking the deck for an as-yet-unamed candidate of his recently formed Unity party. He has ignored calls from U.S. senators and others to reform the eight-member, presidentially approved electoral council ahead of the vote and ensure the participation of all parties.

The last election Preval oversaw, a 2009 legislative contest, was held after more than a year and a half of delays and marred by extremely low turnout, allegations of fraud and a few, small outbursts of violence.

The party of ousted ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide – who was flown into African exile in 2004 aboard a U.S. plane – was barred from running based on a technicality. It is expected to be banned again this year.

Questions surround Jean’s bid as well. He must prove he has resided in Haiti for five consecutive years, own property in the country and have no other citizenship but Haitian.

His brother said that unlike much of the family, Jean has never held a U.S. passport. He added that believe that Jean’s residency requirement will be waived because he has been a presidentially appointed Haitian goodwill ambassador since 2007.

Jean would have to deal with voters undecided on how to think about Haitians abroad. Many families are dependent on successful overseas relatives for remittances but often seem them as near foreigners. The singer’s American accented Creole and lack of French – for many things still the language of government here – will be constant reminders he did not grow up here.

He will also have to field questions about his Yele Haiti charity, which raised more than $9 million after the quake. The organization was widely criticized for alleged financial irregularities after quake, when scrutiny revealed that it had paid Jean to perform at fundraising events and bought advertising air time from a television station he co-owns, among other suspected improprieties.

Yele hired a new accounting firm after the allegations surfaced.

“I think what he demonstrated in Yele was leadership. When a problem was brought to his attention he immediately dealt with it openly and transparently,” Samuel Jean said.

A businessman named Kesner Valmacy stopped by the electoral council Tuesday to register himself to run for president. He said he welcomed Jean as a competitor but that his overseas credentials should disqualify him.

“He’s a very successful man in the United States, but Haiti is very complicated,” Valmacy said.

Nearby a 28-year-old woman who has never held a job said Jean’s youth and outsider status were attractive. In a Haitian twist, she compared his age – favorably – to former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who was so named because he succeeded his father at the age of 19, just a few years before the Jeans’ parents yanked them from the oppressive country.

“Haiti needs something new. I’ll vote for him,” the woman, Michelle Voma, said.

While still weighing his options last month, Wyclef told AP that he saw his role in the upcoming election as ensuring young people participate in the country’s rebuilding.

“I don’t want to be a puppet. I just want to be able to do more,” the artist said.

Wyclef Jean and Haiti earthquake victims