Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean has entered the race to become president of Haiti, jetting into the impoverished Caribbean country on a private plane and asking Haitians to give him “power for change.”
“The United States has [President Barack] Obama, here you’re going to have Wyclef,” the Haitian-born founder of landmark 1990s group The Fugees said after arriving on Thursday with his wife and daughter.
A crowd of young supporters sporting red and white T-shirts gathered in the Delmas neighborhood of the capital to escort Jean as he filed his candidacy papers at the electoral council office.
PHOTO: AFP
“We have to live together, work together to change Haiti, open more schools,” Jean said, calling on the youths around him to register to vote.
“I’m asking you not for money, but your power for change,” he said.
Jean’s bid for the presidency of the quake-hit nation has won support in Haiti, where many hail him as a hero, but has also drawn sneers from figures skeptical of a hip-hop star in the national palace.
Among his sharpest critics was actor Sean Penn, who runs a tent city here for those left homeless by the devastating Jan. 12 quake.
“He has been virtually silent, for those of us in Haiti he has been a non-presence,” Penn said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, pointing to allegations Jean misused more than US$400,000 donated to his charity.
“So, I want to see someone who is really, really willing to sacrifice for their country and not just someone who I personally saw with a vulgar entourage of vehicles that demonstrated a wealth in Haiti that — in context — I felt a very obscene demonstration,” Penn said.
Earlier this year, Jean broke down in tears after denying that his Yele Haiti Foundation had misused funds, as suggested by a 2006 tax return showing that more than a third of its revenues went to cover miscellaneous expenses.
The Grammy award winner told CNN’s Larry King Live program he hoped to usher in a new era for the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation.
Jean said he would run on a campaign platform based on five key points.
“When I look at the situation of Haiti as a kid, I think the focus right now should definitely be on education, job creation, agriculture, security, and health care,” he told CNN.
Jean lives in the New York area but has traveled to Haiti multiple times seeking to defuse gang violence and help the poorest Haitians.
In Port-au-Prince, reactions to the campaign were split between established party politicians and people on the street.
“What’s happening now is an emotional reaction. With Wyclef, it’s improvisation, it’s an adventure,” opposition party leader Evans Paul said.
However, Haitian youth appear attracted to the idea, though some seemed concerned he would have to give up his music career to lead the country.
“I’ll vote on one condition: if Wyclef is in the race,” said Emmanuelle, a 21-year-old street peddler.
Vendors on a bustling street corner of the eastern suburb Petionville were unanimous in their support for the rapper.
“Yes, we will vote for him,” groups of them said in unison.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS