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19 candidates jockeying to lead disaster-struck Haiti
In a field crowded with 19 somewhat eclectic candidates, the front-runners on the ballot Sunday include a charismatic carnival singer who used to perform in drag, a former first lady whose husband was ousted by a military coup, and a rich industrialist who boasts of surviving seven assassination attempts.
Politics, Haiti-style, can be chaotic, typically accompanied by violence and fraud. Campaigning consists of televised debates that most Haitians don’t watch because they don’t have TV sets or electricity, and of boisterous public rallies that are announced at the last second for fear that partisans will attack one another.
While Haiti could use a good leader now, the US is keeping their eyes on the candidates. The new government will need to work with President Obama’s administration, international donors, and UN special envoy Bill Clinton to spend a record-breaking $9 billion pledged to rebuild the shattered state.
“I’ve not met anybody we can’t work with,’’ said US Ambassador Kenneth Merten however, who has sat down with the top contenders.
With just days until the election, in which 10 senators and 99 deputies will also be elected, violence has been mostly limited to attacks on UN peacekeepers, who some politicians say brought cholera to Haiti. “By Haiti standards, it has been quite peaceful,’’ Merten said.
Haiti’s presidential election revolves around personalities rather than parties or issues, and this year the big choice facing voters is whether to continue the path of President René Préval by backing his handpicked successor, Jude Celestin, 48, an engineer who ran the state road building agency, or to go with one of the other 18 candidates vowing change.
