Haitian election and Wyclef Jean

Well Haiti's getting ready for its presidential elections in late November. Here is an article detailing some of the legal cloudiness surrounding many of the candidates. And anyone who's been paying attention is aware of singer Wyclef Jean's candidacy.

Here's word from a Haitian-American who seems to think Wyclef Jean is the best thing since sliced bread. I think the silliest thing in the article, and a summary of the entire post, is his claim that Jean's 29 years living in the US somehow suit him best for being president of Haiti. Hell, if that's the case, why not send in Rudy Giuliani, or General Petraeus, or my mom's neighbor in Chicago? They've lived in the US all their lives, and would be sure to effectively jam US norms onto Haitian society, as has worked so well in the past!

And here is another Haitian-American with an admonition for Wyclef not to run for president. I was going to go on a whole tirade in this post about how the Haitian Diaspora often thinks it knows better what Haiti needs than do regular Haitians, and how Wyclef's candidacy is the archetypal manifestation of this thinking. But this article, a measured critique of Wyclef Jean's presidential bid, said what I wanted to, and in a much better, calmer, more erudite way. Basically the author points out that Wyclef is a singer that has hardly lived in Haiti (never in his adult life), which does not suit him well to lead the country as president. More importantly, Wyclef seemed to voice tacit support for the war criminals that ousted the president in the 2004 coup d'etat, which definitely puts him on the bad-guy list. In fact, I think the biggest piss-off of the whole Haitian election is that the Fanmi Lavalas party, the principal, most popular party in Haiti and the party of the still-exiled president ousted in 2004, is banned from participating.

And to close, here's a rather acid-tongued (but dead-on) article comparing Wyclef Jean to Sarah Palin.