Thursday, April 7, 2011

ARTICLE - NEW LEADER PLEDGES RECONCILIATION

NEW HAITIAN LEADER PLEDGES RECONCILAITION
(New York Times) - By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

PORT-AU-PRINCE — It was a new stage on Tuesday for Michel Martelly, the former hit-maker who nicknamed himself “president” in song and is now on the verge of serving as the real thing in this devastated country.

Far from the glittering carnival floats from which he performed in diapers, dresses and dropped pants as the self-proclaimed “bad boy” of kompa music, Mr. Martelly on Tuesday strode onto a stage in the back of a high-end restaurant here that screamed presidential.

As if in a State of the Union entrance, he greeted well-wishers for his first post-election news conference as he made his way to a lectern bathed in soft light and flanked by Haitian flags. He wore a conservative gray suit, pink shirt (the official color of his campaign), red tie and, rarely donned in public, reading glasses. He spoke from a script. It was almost entirely in French, the language of the elite here.

The message was reconciliation and unity, not profane takes on past leaders.

“I am president for all Haitians,” Mr. Martelly said. “We are going to work together for change.”

And so Mr. Martelly, who, according to preliminary results announced Monday, won more than two-thirds of the votes cast in the March 20 presidential runoff, set about reassuring Haiti and the world that he has the capacity to lead a country still on its knees from the January 2010 earthquake, a cholera epidemic and decades of the worst poverty in the hemisphere.

His political skills will quickly face a test, assuming the results hold up when the official outcome is announced April 16.

Parliament is dominated by the party of President René Préval, potentially stalling any legislation Mr. Martelly puts forth and complicating his pick for prime minister, who must be endorsed by the legislature. It appears turnout was far lower than in previous elections — an Organization of American States and Caribbean Community projection put it at 30 percent, but no official figures have been released — potentially diminishing his claim of a mandate.

There are also reserves of skepticism among the leaders of the thousands of nongovernmental organizations that form the backbone of social aid, as well as among diplomats of some countries contributing to the several billion dollars pledged, but far from fully delivered, to rebuild the country.

Mr. Martelly must now “balance the exigencies placed on him by foreign governments and agencies with the needs and aspirations of the Haitian population,” said Laurent Dubois, a professor of French studies and history and a Haiti scholar at Duke University. “He is entering a particularly complex, multifaceted, and contorted political landscape.”

Though large crowds flock around Mr. Martelly as the great pink hope, the process of getting power brokers to look past his carnivalesque stage persona began months ago, as it became clear he was emerging from political obscurity to become a force in the presidential race. He ascended largely on the back of young, desperately poor supporters who knew him and his bawdy act very well.

Diplomats began arriving at his mansion in a hilly neighborhood. They took his measure, and he theirs.

“We knew Madame Manigat much better, so there was a lot of getting to know you,” said one, referring to Mirlande Manigat, the college professor and former first lady whom Mr. Martelly defeated, who is a longtime opposition figure here.

Another diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We all had concerns about his preparation to run a country and his background and where the resources were coming from for his campaign. But we started a dialogue.”

Mr. Martelly has yet to identify the donors for his multimillion-dollar campaign, and supporters of Ms. Manigat tried to use the fact that banks foreclosed on three of his Florida properties to tarnish his claims he would be fiscally responsible.

But in these closed-door meetings, he used flashes of humor to disarm his guests and, acknowledging gaps in how government functions, promised to rely on a group of respected professionals along with his wife, Sophia, who runs the family’s charitable foundation. Mr. Martelly began allaying some fears.

“He has a lot of good technocrats around him, so that gives us hope,” said an official at a large nongovernmental organization.

Karl Jean Louis, who helps direct Haiti Aid Watchdog, which monitors nongovernmental groups here, said he had been so favorably impressed with Mr. Martelly’s requests for information following a January conference on aid distribution that he ended up joining the campaign as an adviser.

“Haitians have to be a part of the reconstruction effort and people are frustrated at being left out,” he said. “I think he is serious about mobilizing Haitians.”

Mr. Martelly, among his list of goals like expanding education, also played up kick-starting foreign investment and unclogging a backlog of delayed projects.

Reginald Boulos, a pillar of the business community who said he had stayed neutral in the race, said many business leaders initially doubted Mr. Martelly’s readiness but grew more comfortable at the professional nature of his campaign. It was run by consultants who worked with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and President Felipe Calderón of Mexico.

It also does not hurt to have good relations with the prospective president.

“I will call him to congratulate him,” said Mr. Boulos, who is the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce here and a veteran insider.

“We elected a priest who did not bring prosperity,” he said, referring to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former priest of the poor who in 1990 became the country’s first democratically elected president and made a sudden return from exile just before the runoff. “We have elected politician after politician who did not bring prosperity. If Haitians decide he is their choice, and clearly you can see he is their choice, what we can really hope for is the Haitian people will not be disappointed.”

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