On
Aug. 29, thousands thronged the streets of Pétionville
to catch a glimpse of the Lavalas Family (FL) party’s
candidate – the one from 16 years ago.
Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the FL’s
founder and “national representative for life” (according to the party’s
charter), made a rare appearance in the narrow streets
of this tony, small metropolis set in the hills above
Port-au-Prince. He was accompanying Dr. Maryse Narcisse,
the party’s presidential candidate in the rerun
elections scheduled for Oct. 9. The official 45-day
campaign season opened on Aug. 23.
Aristide was elected president in landslide
victories in 1990 and 2000. Despite internal splits and
makeovers in recent years, the party is hoping his
political charisma, legend, and popularity are durable
and transferable enough to ensure a Narcisse victory,
even if in the Jan. 8, 2017 second round. In the largely
discredited Oct. 25, 2015 vote under former President
Michel Martelly, Narcisse officially placed fourth with
7% of the vote. Break-away Lavalas candidate, former
Sen. Moïse Jean-Charles, who founded a new party called
Dessalines’ Children (PD), supposedly won 14% of that
vote. Many fear those two candidates will split the vote
of Haiti’s Lavalas masses, thereby benefitting one of
the other two heavy-weight candidates: Jude Célestin of
the Alternative League for Progress and Haitian
Emancipation (LAPEH) or Jovenel Moïse of Martelly’s
Haitian Bald Headed Party (PHTK), who placed
second and first respectively in the now discarded 2015
polling.
Thousands rallied at Delmas 95 to accompany
Narcisse and Aristide into Pétionville. “Long live
Aristide, there’s our father,” was among the cries as
Aristide arrived to thunderous applause. “We’re not paid
to be here, we’re here for dignity,” the crowd sang,
riffing on a central chant of Aristide’s 1990 campaign.
“We’re here voluntarily.”
The crowd also ridiculed a poll by the Research
Office in Computer Science and Economic and Social
Development (BRIDES) which also found Narcisse to be in
fourth place. “This is the real public opinion poll,”
the crowd chanted. “BRIDES can’t break the people’s
spirit with bogus polls.”
Aristide, dressed in a white guayabera, stood
next to Narcisse in the roof port of a silver SUV which
rolled slowly toward Pétionville’s central square, St.
Pierre’s Place. They waved and blew kisses to the
thousands who lined the sidewalks, balconies,
staircases, and roofs along the route.
At the central square, Aristide had wanted to get
out of the car to greet the police officers and
prisoners inside the police headquarters there. He
couldn’t due to the size and excitement of the
close-pressed crowd. Then, Aristide and Narcisse went to
the nearby Kinam Hotel, where they held a press
conference.
“To protect its citizens after the creation of
the city of Pétionville in 1831, Haiti built two forts:
Fort Jacques and Fort Alexandre,” Aristide said. “Today
we bring the force of dignity to build Fort Dignity,
which will allow us to arrive at the appointment with
dignity scheduled for Feb. 7, 2017 at the National
Palace,” referring to inauguration day.
“The country is sick in all its components, at
the political, economic, and social levels,” said Dr.
Narcisse, after thanking the crowd and the press. “We
need all the sons and daughters of the nation to be able
to cure the disease from which it is suffering. For
this, I open my arms to gather all the nation’s children
to provide sustainable solutions to the nation’s many
problems.”
After the press conference, Aristide and Narcisse
went back down the Delmas Road with their vehicle
enveloped by a large, loud, compact crowd. Another FL
rally is planned for Sep. 11 at the old military airport
in Port-au-Prince where some of Aristide’s public
housing apartments were built 13 years ago.
In 2015, Aristide accompanied Narcisse only once
in a tour of Port-au-Prince’s vast Cité Soleil slum only
two days before the election. For the upcoming election,
party sources say Aristide will campaign much more
extensively with Narcisse. Their next swing will be in
the Haitian provinces, which Aristide has not officially
visited since returning to Haiti five years ago.
Aristide has rarely left his home in the
capital’s Tabarre suburb since returning to Haiti on
Mar. 18, 2011 after seven years of exile in the Central
African Republic, Jamaica, and South Africa following
the U.S.-backed Feb. 29, 2004 coup d’état which deposed
him for a second time.
Candidate Moïse Jean-Charles, Narcisse’s principal rival
for the vote of the Lavalas base, held a large kick-off
rally on Aug. 28 in the town of Arcahaie, 40 km
northwest of the capital, where the alliance of founding
fathers Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Alexandre Pétion was
cemented in 1803.
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