René Préval: The Once and Future President Breaks His Silence

Port-au-Prince, February 22, 2006. Sitting in his sister's back yard of dappled sunlight and scruffy grass, and flanked by his former prime minister and advisors from his former cabinet, past-and-future-President Préval spoke to a mob of eager domestic and international journalists.

He began by comparing Haiti to a bottle. Resting on its small mouth, it will fall over. It won't be stable. It must sit on its base, on the part that is largest, he said. In his first speech as president-elect, Préval was not basking in his glory. On the contrary, he was emphasizing that he cannot hold up Haiti himself. He will need a complete government, and more.
"I'm frightened to see the passion that arose from the presidential election, and the joy of the Haitian people because a Haitian president had been elected, and the hope placed in the election of that president," he said.
"I want to remind the Haitian people of the limited power of the president. The elections are still going on. If Parliament is not strong and cohesive, the president can't respond to all the problems, to all the hopes we see the people expressing," he said.

Préval said he noticed a lack of enthusiasm for the legislative elections. "I'll repeat," he said. "Go and vote for your legislators."

Haiti has not had a Parliament since January 2004, when a failure to hold legislative elections meant there were no replacements for the majority of legislators whose terms were expiring. For the following six weeks, until he was ousted, then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ruled by decree.

As for his job, Préval said Haiti's future presidency will have two fundamental missions: First, to build institutions that are provided by the constitution, such as municipal and national assemblies, which appoint judges. "That way we will put the bottle on its base, on these institutions, so everything is not concentrated in the presidency," he said.
"The second mission is to create the conditions for private investment to create jobs," he said. This means bringing roads and electricity, passing laws that favor investment, and reducing kidnappings and other criminal acts that scare off investors.

Préval emphasized that not only can the president not go it alone, but neither can the government as a whole.

In the run-up to the election, countless Préval fans said they had no jobs and believed they would find employment under a Préval presidency. Many said they were employed by the Aristide government but laid off when he left power.

But during Préval's campaign -- which was characteristically more about listening than talking -- the candidate asked crowds how many people wanted jobs, to which all hands were raised. When he asked if the government has the capacity to provide all those jobs, the crowds cried, "No!"

After Election Day, René Max Auguste, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti, predicted a Préval victory, and said that the business community must work with the president-to-be to bring "hope and work" to the Haitian people.

But he said he had one concern about Préval. "I think during [Préval's first] presidency, he was undermined by Aristide," he said. "I hope this time he can come back as a true president. I hope that Aristide will not interfere in any way in his presidency."

Journalists asked Préval if he would allow this, and Préval replied as he had replied before: "My position is simple... Article 41.1 of the Constitution stipulates that no Haitian needs a visa to leave his [or her] country, or to return to it." As to what Aristide would do once back in Haiti, Préval said, "You'll have to ask him, not me."

And some violent parts of the city were more peaceful after Préval's electoral victory was announced than they had been in months. But discontent within Haiti's political class casts a shadow over upcoming elections and calls into question the possibility of a smooth transfer of power.

Charges of fraud by Préval supporters were hushed when Haiti's electoral council decided to reclassify ballots left blank in a way that benefited Préval, pushing all the candidates' percentages up, and Préval's into the category of absolute majority, allowing him to win the first round.

This decision to alter the counting of blank ballots infuriated Leslie Manigat, the first runner-up in the presidential race. Manigat called the decision "an electoral coup d'état."

Charles Baker, the second runner-up, said the way Préval won calls into question his legitimacy as president.

Meanwhile, Jacques Bernard, the electoral council's director, fled the country after receiving threats to his life and having his farmhouse burned.

Micha Gaillard, spokesman for FUSION, one of the main political parties, said he worries the rest of the electoral process will be even more fraught with problems in Bernard's absence, but he said the opposition will march on.

Préval, for his part, said there are not enough candidates of his Lespwa party to win a majority in Parliament, and his arms are open to other candidates committed to making Haiti a better place.

Officials said the nation was still on schedule for Préval's inauguration March 29. But as Préval reminded us, a president is only part of the answer.