Wyclef Jean to Run for President of Haiti

Singer-songwriter Wyclef Jean, who for many years has been an advocate for Haiti, now wants to be president of his native country.

Jean, 37, submitted the paperwork August 5 to run in the election set for Sunday, November 28. The winner will be elected to a five-year term. Political analysts don’t expect President Rene Preval to be reelected.

People had speculated for years about the political ambitions of Jean (pronounced Zhahn), who was born in Haiti but moved to New York City when he was 9.

Jean said he knows critics will say he’s not eligible to run because the Haitian constitution requires a candidate to have lived in Haiti for five straight years prior to an election.

“They’re going to attack me in the next two weeks,” Jean said. “They think they’re going to get me with the dual citizenship thing. But I have a Haitian passport with a green card.”

A three-time Grammy Award winner best known for being part of the group The Fugees, Jean became highly visible in Haiti after a January 12 earthquake devastated the Caribbean island. The earthquake killed 230,000 and left 2 million homeless in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Yele Haiti, a charity founded by Jean, collected millions of dollars earmarked for earthquake relief and recovery efforts. Much of the money came from people texting their donations.

A 2006 tax return showed one-third of the donations to Yele Haiti had been used instead for miscellaneous expenses. At a news conference in January, Jean tearfully denied knowledge of the financial problems.

Actor Sean Penn, whose J/P Relief Organization has aided Haitians, said on August 4 that in the months after the earthquake Jean “has been virtually silent for those of us in Haiti. He has been a non-presence.”

Although Jean has no political experience, he says he believes he can inspire Haitians in a way similar to that of the first African-American president.

“The United States has Barack Obama and Haiti has Wyclef Jean,” he said.

DID YOU KNOW?

* Haiti has a long history of political instability. Dr. Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, are among the past presidents widely seen as brutal and corrupt by the people of Haiti.

* Half of Haiti’s 9 million residents are under the age of 25. That could bode well for Wyclef Jean’s campaign since he is very popular among Haitian youth.

* Pras Michel, Jean’s cousin, and Lauryn Hill were the other members of The Fugees. The group’s second album, The Score, won two Grammys.

* Jean’s uncle Raymond Joseph, a former Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., also plans to run for president? “We talked about this; we talk all the time,” Joseph said. “We are family. We won’t allow politics to divide.” There is talk that Joseph and Jean may campaign together. Relatives campaigning together while running against each other for the same job? That’s something you may never see in American politics.