Haitian Elections Move Forward No Thanks to Aristide

Ray Walser / March 23, 2011

After hitting some minor speed bumps, the Haitian runoff election ran more smoothly than anticipated on Sunday, March 20.

The run-off candidates, Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly and former first lady Mirlande Manigat, are still neck and neck in the race to become Haiti’s next president. For a while, the dramatic return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide threatened to disrupt the process. Fortunately, observers have verified that the results announced on April 16 will be accurate.

Fourteen months after the destructive Haitian earthquake, the Haitian people faced a choice between a showy pop star (Martelly) and a matronly academic (Manigat) to lead their country to higher ground. The 50-year-old pop singer Martelly ran a well-funded, energetic campaign as a political outsider bringing a fresh, youthful, but many fear entirely inexperienced perspective to Haitian politics. His appeal to a younger demographic was evident when hundreds of frenzied supporters filled the streets to cheer his arrival at the ballots. (more…)