By Jean H Charles

I returned recently to Haiti from a stint in the United States. If it is April, it is medical checkup time! My tenth year for tetanus shot: check! It is also my tenth year for colonoscopy examination: check! My medical doctor of fifteen years gave me a thumbs-up sign, except he advised me, I must lose some weight. He told me so, fifteen years ago. I was then in love with my weight, (skinny boy gets no girl!) I paid no attention. I have no such leeway today. I must shed the extra pounds.

Back in Haiti, the political check up is simmering with rumours and maneuvers. The newly elected president, Joseph Michel Martelly is under strong pressure by the Preval regime and by a sector of the international community to accept a prime minister in the person of the old one, Jean Max Bellerive. The popular Haitian vote wants a complete break with the past. A past so callous and so insensitive to the aspirations and to the needs of the people that the very thought of its continuation in the form of a status quo is repugnant to most.

The same Haitian drama is being replayed not with the same actors but with the same script through the times. The transition must be hijacked and the benefits of a true change postponed once again. 

Back in 1807, right after the 1804 epic struggle for slave emancipation and the prospect of a solid nation building, Haiti’s own heroes Alexander Petion and Jean Pierre Boyer facilitated the vassalization of the country through a heavy burden of a mortgage entered into as a unconscionable war payment. It took almost two centuries to repay that debt, refinanced several times under usurious conditions, postponing any attempt at institutions and infrastructure building.

Later, the realpolitik a la Bismarck, trapped with the cold war cloud, incubated the transition from Papa Doc dictator, to Baby Doc dictator (the Duvaliers). Closer to us, the international misguided foreign policies led to the abortive nascent pulsation of democracy after the departure of the Duvaliers in 1987.

This time, in 2011, the world’s eminence grise, former President Bill Clinton, is trying to impose his own man as the chief of government in Haiti. Using the quote for the French eminent drama writer Corneille, referring to Cardinal Richelieu, I would say Bill Clinton has done too much good for Haiti to say anything bad about him; he has also done too much harm to Haiti to say anything good! (He has himself repented for some of them!)

The party -- Reponses Paysans -- that designated Michel Martelly as its candidate is now proposing Mr Gervais Charles as the next prime minister for Haiti. He has been a fierce advocate for the president elect; the president of the Bar Association, he was a soothing voice when the nation needs comfort and solace after the earthquake. His integrity, amongst peers and in the community is beyond criticism. He will help the president to deliver on the promises of education for all, generalized public health infrastructure to combat the onslaught of cholera, agricultural incubation to bring about full employment in the rural sector and refugee relocation to dismantle the slum area in the capital and in the main cities.

The past government has erected its own barrier in the form of corruption to influence the electoral board to fill the legislature with its candidates from the Unity Party, usurping the right to name the Prime Minister.

It was difficult to change the popular vote for the presidential election. It has been easier to rig the results in the legislative balloting.

The choice of the prime minister and his entourage of ministers will be the first test of the Martelly government. It will indicate whether he can muster the strength and the courage to surround himself with men and women who have at heart a fundamental break with the culture of squalor so endemic to the state of the state of Haiti. 

It will indicate also whether the new president will give early signals of calling the bluff of the interest groups – national and international – that pretend to represent the best interests of the nation. Using the lowest standard of evaluation, it is eminently clear to all that the immense resource of the world’s goodwill, towards Haiti has been wasted with a minimum impact for the population.

The wind of change from the Arab world has also echoed in the Western Hemisphere; the people of Haiti want to own this transition to usher in true democracy with the delivery of ethical institutions and reliable infrastructure for the benefit of all, as it is practiced and seen commonly in the United States, France or Canada.

April 23, 2011

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