Préval Is At It Again

In a July 24 interview on Radyo Kiskeya, Mr. Camille Leblanc, former Justice Minister during René Préval’s first term (1996-2001), reported that the Haitian president presented a Putin-style scenario at a meeting with members of Haiti’s economic elite that was bizarre and entertaining. The scenario was in reference to former Russian president Vladimir Putin who, in 2008, handpicked his successor, Dmitry Medveded, and stayed on as Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, as he was constitutionally barred from serving a third consecutive term. It is hard to understand the rationale behind Préval’s purported move because both cases bear no similarities whatsoever.
Putin was widely popular at the end of his term and his countrymen enjoyed a level of prosperity unparalleled in the history of Russia, while Préval was the most reviled man in Haiti even before his pathetic handling of the January 12 disaster. Putin restored pride in his people after the demise of the Soviet Union (1991) and the trying years of Boris Yeltsin (1991-99), while Préval is presiding over a wretched and divided nation that needs to be rebuilt form scratch but remains at the mercy of duplicitous foreign donors and a decidedly anti-Haitian economic elite. Putin personifies the notion of leadership, while Préval, if one shares the conclusion of a report by the U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “possesses a marginal capacity to lead his country’s reconstruction” a scathing indictment that negates his megalomaniacal dream. With this nonsense, however, Préval’s political immortality is guaranteed; his tombstone should read “ Ici repose l’indispensable (Here lays the indispensable).”
Assuming Mr. Leblanc’s mind-boggling revelation is correct, Préval apparently suffers from an undiagnosed mental disorder, likely caused by his excessive consumption of booze that prevents him from dealing with reality, which may explain his indifference and sometimes sarcastic responses to the plight of his countrymen. Nonetheless, in light of the fact there are no dumb ideas in politics but proposals that have yet to catch fire, Mr. Leblanc’s somewhat incredulous revelation should not be dismissed as untrustworthy words of a Haitian politician. In fact, the scheme may have been conceived by the group that benefits the most from Préval’s incompetence, i.e., the economic elite, as the Haitian president, despite his Machiavellian streak, is intellectually incapable of formulating such grand and convoluted idea.
Préval’s plan includes barring potential populist candidates from participating in the fall elections with the help of the Provisional Electoral Council; legitimizing the fraud by encouraging certain internationally-supported politicians to take part in the elections as a means to neutralize a probable boycott by the opposition/Lavalas, and having a prospective Parliament dominated by his supporters to enact the appropriate legislation. There is one caveat: Washington which insists that the CEP, French acronym for the Provisional Electoral Council, be reformed prior to the elections, will not support such harebrained scheme for the simple reason that Préval is a damaged good and now a destabilizing factor. It may be an intended snub at Washington or the man simply lost his marbles and is actually at the mercy of the elite and his ambitious wife.
Like the exportation of Jim Crow to Haiti (1915-34), politics in the impoverished country is an extension of U.S domestic politics, something that Préval could never fully understand. Préval’s calling of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar’s suggestion that reforms need to be implemented before the disbursement of the promised aid can take place “inadmissible” puts Haiti’s reconstruction right in the middle of U.S politics, a bad omen particularly in an election year. Arguably the man remains oblivious to the reality that political jockeying trumps compassion and that his stance may cost the country dearly. His steadfast refusal to combat corruption and revamp the CEP can only encourage the suffocating presence of the NGOs and delay the aspiration of the Haitian people to see Haiti recovering its sovereignty.
Like the 2004 bunch (Convergence) that was fooled by the elite’s machinations, Préval, unable to read the true motive behind the elite’s support, fancies himself to be irreplaceable, a pattern consistent among Haitian leaders. With less than a year remaining in his term (he is constitutionally required to step down on February 2011), Préval is only useful to the elite as long as he enjoys the support of the international community or could deliver a replica of himself in the fall elections. His public declaration denouncing one of the most powerful members of the U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, was a monumental blunder and a departure from the norm. Considering that past Haitian leaders invariably used passive resistance to convey their displeasure with Washington rather than public utterances, Préval’s statement certainly dooms any chances his plan of becoming prime minister after his presidency might have had.
As the August 7th registration deadline nears, will the CEP reconsider its decision to ban the Fanmi Lavalas Party from participating in the November vote which has, in the absence of social and economic progress in the last 6 years, become an indispensable phase towards rebuilding Haiti and its political institutions? Or, more to the point, will the international community, the effective ruler of the country and guarantor of the vote, condone the politic of exclusion that is one of the major aspects of Haiti’s instability? As long as the international community persists in equating the legitimate aspiration of the majority with that of Aristide, the Haitian people should expect more of the same.