Sunday, August 22, 2010

Wyclef Jean Left off of Ballot for Upcoming Haitian Elections; Plans to Appeal

Given how Wyclef Jean has run Yele Haiti, it's probably best that he was left off of the ballot. I suspect that governing a state- even a failed state- requires far more effort than a few months of gimmickry and publicity stunts while campaigning.

Haitian hip-hop star Wyclef Jean has said he will appeal against a ruling that he cannot run in Haiti's presidential election.

Haiti's electoral commission said that Mr Jean was ineligible to stand as the Haitian constitution requires candidates to have lived in the country for five years prior to an election.

The 40-year-old singer lives in the US.

But he argues that his role as a roving ambassador for Haiti since 2007 exempts him from the residency requirement
The comission made its ruling on Friday, and a statement issued saying that while he disagreed with their opinion, he would accept their ruling. However, Wyclef Jean tweeted over the weekend that his legal team would appeal the electoral comission's ruling.

Haiti's presidential elections were scheduled for February 28, 2010. However, after the devestating Magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck on January 12th, it was decided to move the polling date back to at least November 28. As many as 230,000 were feared killed in the quake.

Candidates will also be running for ten senate seats and 98 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

3 comments:

  1. Haiti is seeing the results of our last election and is doing everything they can to keep from becoming the 3rd world shithole our government is trying to turn us into.

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  2. I liked that initial statement. Reminds me of people in the US who think they would be perfect as a Senator because they ran a business and made billions; the more to spend on a campaign. When the do get elected they don't work. They have staffs who work.

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  3. Yele Haiti is/was supposed to be a charity that went to helping provide food, shelter and clothes to Haiti's poor.

    Except a number of audits of Yele Haiti showed that a good deal of money went to pay for Wyclef's own studios or appearences by some of his hip-hop cohorts.

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