It’s game day for Wyclef Jean in his quest for the presidency of Haiti. Yesterday an electoral official said the pop star was not on the ballot for the presidential election, which will be announced today. Jean seems undeterred.
In his bid for the presidency, Wyclef fought the law—and it’s not yet clear whether or not the law won.
Previously we reported on the top reasons why Wyclef Jean would likely not become the next president of Haiti—our list topped out with the simple fact that he is not legally allowed to run in that country.
Haitian electoral policy dictates that citizens must have lived in that country for 5 years prior to running for office. Jean lobbied to have this rule overturned, but told “Time” magazine that the Congress had been “dilly-dallying on that.”
The official roster of candidates on the ballot is due out today, and yesterday an electoral official told Reuters about Jean, “He is not on the list as I speak.”
However MSNBC reports that “after a meeting with President Rene Preval Thursday that he feels ‘we are going to be OK’ when the list comes out Friday.”
In seeking to bend the rules to his favor, Jean joins a long list of celebrities, like Roger Clemens and Lindsay Lohan, who consider themselves above the law and make no bones about trying to dodge its restrictions.
Of course unlike Lohan and Clemens (probably), Jean has committed no crime. But he has made some financial missteps with his Yele charity organization which is supposed to be providing aid for that country’s earthquake-ravaged citizens. Yele’s new CEO Derek Johnson, who was brought in to clean up the mess, said, “On the whole, it’s clear that missteps have been made, both in execution and in judgment, some of which apparently are still unfolding.” Jean denies the allegations, and while the accusations may not be criminal legally, they are certainly so ethically.
So will Jean appear on the ballot? We’ll find out today. But if he’s not, life will likely get a little easier for opponent Michel Martell, whom Jean’s former Fugees band-mate Pras Michel is supporting by the way.
Either way, it appears that Jean will likely have a tough fight ahead of him on the road to the presidency.
