Category Politics

If it is about politics, find it here.

Aug 16 2014

Legislative Election This Year in Haiti or Dismissal of The Parliament

I am against the application of Article 12 of the El Rancho Agreement; it is recipe for political suicide for President Martelly. He should not and must not take such route. By the same token, I am wholeheartedly against the idea of mandate prolongation for these lawmakers whose terms will come to an end on the 2nd Monday of January.

So far, we all on the progressive aisle of the political spectrum would agree that President Martelly has done way too much and gone to the extreme to facilitate the organization of the elections this year. But, and that is very unfortunate, the unwavering and insurmountable roadblock inside the Senate is beyond his control.

President Martelly can’t do anything to make possible the impossible in the Senate. He can only hope the 6 Lavalas senators come to their senses, which I strongly doubt will happen, to allow the electoral process to pursue its course. Otherwise, he will have to bet on time to welcome sooner than later the arrival of the 2nd Monday of January -the day this Parliament will constitutionally expire.

Once the Parliament expires, we will have a situation of fact to deal with. It will be dismissed because its tenure will be unconstitutional. Then what will be the reaction of the so-called opposition? We will be witnessing waves of political turbulence and each side will be playing the blame game for a few months, which should be expected, before everyone starts absorbing and digesting the logic of the general elections in 2015.

The notion that President Martelly will have to go if he fails to organize the legislative and territorial elections this year, which those in the so-called opposition are regurgitating over and over, is pure political fantasy from a bunch of so-called politicians indulging in the act of intellectual masturbation. With this talking point, the so-called opposition is doing nothing but talking gibberish to create fear of the unknown in the minds of the people. We know for a fact they do not have the political means on the ground and on the world stage to force Martelly out of power. If they did, they would have kicked him out long ago. So they are making empty noises to disturb the midnight peace in the Republic.

What I see in the political horizon is clear and simple: unless a miracle happens for the 6 Lavalas senators to come to their senses to facilitate the electoral process to run its course, we are heading toward the expiration and dismissal of the Parliament -which will create waves of political turbulence for a few weeks or months before everyone accepts the new reality as the new normal in our political conjuncture. Then everyone will be talking about general elections in 2015.

Jul 17 2014

Maryse Narcisse [LAVALAS] Is Bad For Haiti

Maryse Narcisse [LAVALAS]

Maryse Narcisse [LAVALAS]

According to this Nouvelliste article, Maryse Narcisse désignée, Moïse Jean-Charles rouspète, MOISE JEAN-CHARLES is going ballistic over the designation of MARYSE NARCISSE by the LAVALAS Party to represent them in the 2015 presidential election.

This is something that risks to divide the party in small particles. And when your base is divided, your chance to win elections is very minced.

So soon or later, there will be a pact between MOISE JEAN-CHARLES and MARYSE NARCISSE, which will be kept away from the public’s knowledge, to bring the base of the LAVALAS Party together.

Per the pact, MOISE JEAN-CHARLES will be Prime Minister and ARNEL BELIZAIRE Minister of Interior in the NARCISSE administration, which means total chaos for the country.

It is imperative that we stop NARCISSE from winning this presidential election -if we don’t want the return of the LAVALAS terrorists [the chimères] in the leadership of the country.

It is imperative that we stop NARCISSE from winning this presidential election if we don’t want the return of Pèlebren -the form of justice promoted by the LAVALAS leadership where accused individuals are set ablaze by cells of LAVALAS terrorists.

It is imperative that we stop NARCISSE from winning this presidential election if we don’t want the return of dechoukaj -the pillage of private businesses by angry LAVALAS mobs.

It is imperative that we stop NARCISSE from winning this presidential election if we don’t want to see all of our state institutions destroyed.

It is imperative that we stop NARCISSE from winning this presidential election if we don’t want the return of institutionalized corruption and lawlessness.

It is imperative that we stop NARCISSE from winning this presidential election if we don’t want the return of the cult of arrogant ignorance (this famous phrase coined by Professor Bernard H. Gousse).

Remember, a vote for NARCISSE is a vote for PM MOISE JEAN-CHARLES and MINISTER BELIZAIRE; a vote for the return of the LAVALAS terrorists [the chimères] in the leadership of the country; a vote for Pèlebren and dechoukaj; a vote to bring down our state institutions; a vote for institutionalized corruption and lawlessness; a vote for the cult of arrogant ignorance. So for the love we hold inside for our beloved Haiti, let us all together say NO to MARYSE NARCISSE and NO to LAVALAS.

Jul 13 2014

Jacques-Edouard Alexis Is Very Audacious

Former Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis

Former Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis

This Jacques-Edouard Alexis, a former LAVALAS Prime Minister, has some nerve to be talking about Prime Minister Lamothe in these terms -in this Nouvelliste article. When will these politicians start showing some degree of decorum in their public positions?

Dude took part in the last presidential election and could not even rake in 1% of the votes cast, yet he seems to have a lot to say of PM Lamothe, who is actually doing way better than he did when he was Prime Minister.

He knows alone he cannot stop PM Lamothe from winning the presidency -should he decide to run -he is calling on his posse of oldies to team up with him to stop him [Lamothe]. He got me laughing at his tamper tantrum.

These old faces need to retire from politics altogether. They are the reason why my country is in the quagmire it finds itself today. If they really want to do the country a great and memorable service, they ALL should shut their mouths.

This moment calls for the emergence of a new political class of young Haitian politicians, not these old faces who have never shied to shame the entire nation. Never again will these bozos return to power. Their time is forever over. We need a new generation of Haitian politicians to take the leadership of the country and lead it in the 21st century.

Whether they want it or not, Lamothe is in a very strong position to be the next president of Haiti. He has been doing a tremendous job thus far as Prime Minister. The man is running the country like a businessman, which is something we had never seen before.

This man, Jacques-Edouard Alexis, is politically insignificant. He is just craving for attention, which he has not been getting since he got fired as Prime Minister. Put him on the ballot to run against Lamothe in the general election, dude will not get 10% of the votes. He is just a sore loser who is barking at the wrong tree. Since he calls himself “universitaire,” whatever the heck that is, he needs to stick to that; politics is not his forte.

May 11 2014

Pa Ka Gen Demokrasi Ak Devlopman San Opozisyon Politik

Noumenm Tèt Kale, nou rekonèt ke gouvènman Martelly-Lamothe la pa gen nan men l solisyon a tout pwoblèm peyi a. Alòs, nou rekonèt fòk gen yon opozisyon ki solid nan demokrasi nou an.

Noumenm Tèt Kale, nou rekonèt fòk gen yon opozisyon ki djanm pou peyi a kapab vanse pou pi devan.

Noumenm Tèt Kale, nou rekonèt ke pa ka gen demokrasi ak devlopman san opozisyon.

Kesyon ke nou sipoze poze tèt nou se, “ki modèl opozisyon ke nou bezwen pou peyi nou an?”

Sa a se yon bèl kesyon, e m pral pran san m pou m byen reponn li. Nou bezwen yon opozisyon ki eklere, yon opozisyon modèn, yon opozisyon k ap kontribye nan devlopman peyi a, yon opozisyon k ap pwopoze fason ke yo panse ki pibon pou nou rezoud pwoblèm yo, yon opozisyon ki kwè nan antame bon jan deba politik pou nou jwenn fason ki pi fè sans pou nou abode pwoblèm ke sosyete a ap viv yo. Se modèl opozisyon sa a ke nou bezwen.

Nou fin ba w ki modèl opozisyon ke nou bezwen pou peyi a, kounyè a nou pral di w ki modèl opozisyon ke nou pa bezwen pou peyi a.

Nou pa bezwen yon opozisyon k ap kraze brize tout sa nou konstwi pou yo fè nou fè “back” pandan ke lemond ap vanse.

Nou pa bezwen yon opozisyon k ap fè dechoukay, k ap dekouraje envestisè Ayisyen tankou etranje pou yo vin envesti nan ekonomi nou an pou yo kreye travay bay pèp la travay [fòk nou konnen ke pa ka gen devlopman san travay, e pa ka gen travay nan fè dechoukay].

Nou pa bezwen yon opozisyon ki kwè nan rache manyòk, ki vle pran pouvwa a san li pa ale nan eleksyon [fòk nou konnen ke enstabilite politik se yon kansè manjezon sa ye pou devlopman yon peyi].

Nou pa vle yon opozisyon k ap bloke peyi a, k ap lage gravwa nan manje a [pou tout 10 milyon Ayisyen yo pa jwenn li pou yo manje] jis paske pèp la voye jete altenativ rache manyòk yo a.

Nou pa vle yon opozisyon k ap divize nasyon an sou yon baz de koulè po -k ap pale de ti wouj kont ti nwa, alòske lè lidè opozisyon an bezwen marye, se fanm ti wouj yo pran pou yo marye [sa a rele demagojikopopilis].

Nou pa vle yon opozisyon politikodemagojik, k ap divize nou sou baz sosyoekonomik [lidè opozisyon an ap pale de nèg anwo kont nèg anba, sepandan se anwo yo monte pou yo bati chato pou yo rete].

Nou se yon sèl pèp… se pou nou mete tèt nou ansanm, andepi de diferans politik e ideyolojik nou, pou nou fè peyi nou an mache. Li lè li tan pou noumenm Ayisyen nou ouvè je nou pou nou ka wè ki kote enterè nou ye. Enterè nou pa nan fè demagoji politik, zigzani ak chirepit; li nan chita tèt frèt pou n ap poze pwoblèm yo, pou nou tout [pouvwa a ansanm ak opozisyon an] ap brase lide nan dyalog ak bon jan deba san demagoji, ki reyèl, onèt e serye pou nou kapab rezoud yo. E lè nou rezoud yo, se peyi a nou fè byen, se pèp la nou fè byen.

Mar 3 2014

Haiti Carnival and Politics: My Take

Kanaval

I think a lot of changes need to be brought to the organization of the Carnival. It is and has always been a pro-government festivity.

President Martelly has brought a lot of changes [for example, holding it in a different city each year to bring thousands of people out to explore what our cities have to offer], but a lot more need to be implemented.

We need to take the Carnival off the yoke of the political establishment and place it in the hands of the private sector so to render it more effective. The only involvement of the government we would need would have to do with logistical and security supports. That’s it.

The committee put together to organize the event is constituted of puppets under the dictate of the government, which makes it a political organization hired to organize a pro-government political manifestation. And this is not anything new, for it has always been that way.

Some groups you do not see in the parade, in spite of their great efforts to produce some of the best meringues of the season, that has to do with a matter of political vendetta -which is is wrong. We need to institute a system of meritocracy -which is based on merit, not favoritism.

Feb 17 2014

Desras Wants To Boycott The Talks Only To Destabilize Haiti

Senator Desras, the president of the Haitian Senate

Senator Desras, the president of the Haitian Senate

 

Senator Desras has decided not to sign the El Rancho agreement -even after President Martelly has published in the country’s gazette, Le Moniteur, the names of 7 of the 10 judges designated by the Senate to permanently sit in the Superior Court of Auditors.

The ball is now in the senator’s court. If the president does not publish all the names, because he has reasonable doubts and objections on the qualifications of 3 of the 10 judges, does that mean the nation must come to a standstill for that? I do not think so.

The president’s action to publish 7 of the 10 names attest to his political will to be part of the solution, not the problem. All Senator Desras needs to do now -if he wants to show that he is not a destabilizing figure -is to get with his peers in the Senate to choose 3 other members with proper credentials to complete the list. I don’t see what the big deal is.

Senator Desras is dragging his feet because he knows Monsignor Langlois will be traveling to the Vatican on the 22nd of this month to be anointed Cardinal by Pope Francis, meaning he will not have that much time to dedicate to the negotiations anymore.

Desras needs to stop being a caucus leader so he could start being a statesman [a person who exhibits great wisdom and ability in directing the affairs of the state or in dealing with important public issues, according to Webster]. It is time that he makes such a distinction.

As president of the Senate, he is in this position because of his leadership [I presume] to lead the Great Corps. So as a leader, he needs to do what is right, not what his Lavalas caucus tells him to do.

I learnt that his decision not to show up at El Rancho Saturday afternoon for the signature of the agreement -when Monsignor Langlois, President Martelly and the representatives of the political parties were waiting on him -has been largely influenced by the members of his Lavalas caucus in the Senate.

The nation and the international community must take note that Senator Desras has stopped the process with his intransigence. He is the person who must be held responsible for anything that may happen up to now. He is placing partisanship and ideology over the prime interests of the country.

Feb 15 2014

WARNING: President Martelly Is Flirting With Danger

President Martelly and Monsignor Langlois

President Martelly and Monsignor Langlois

 

President Martelly is flirting with danger if he thinks he can refuse to not publish in the nation’s gazette, Le Moniteur, the names of the members of the Superior Court of Auditors, which, from my understanding, he had initially promised to do in the El Rancho negotiations with the opposition.

According to the Constitution, it is in the Senate’s prerogative to choose the members of this said institution, not that of the executive branch. The president’s office can only vet the members and communicate its decision within a time frame to the Senate. In the event that the time to do so has elapsed, the president will have no other choice but to publish the names.

So since the president, for whatever reason, let the limit expire, he MUST publish the names. And if the senators make the publication of those names their sine qua non for their endorsement of the tripartite compromise resulting from the El Rancho negotiations, no one can blame them for that.

President Martelly must not be flirting with danger. He MUST publish those names since he let his vetting prerogative expire. I trust his political judgment, so I don’t think he will make such a reckless mistake of not publishing those names. I am sure he is aware of what is at stake. Should he choose to not publish them, he will make a catastrophic mistake, which will have serious political consequences.

Feb 15 2014

The Commonwealth of Virginia Stands For Gay Marriage

Virginia

 

On Thursday, February 13, 2004, a federal judge declared unconstitutional the Commonwealth’s ban on same-sex marriage, making it the most recent state in the union to embrace and take a clear stand for marriage equality.

So I congratulate the Commonwealth for this important step, and I hope more states can follow suit.

As I respect everyone’s view on this matter, I do strongly believe that marriage is between two people who love each other, not between a man and a woman as the religious folks want to make believe.

Gender has nothing to do with marriage, which is simply a matter of the heart.

Gender matters only when procreation comes into play as, biologically speaking, there need to be a male and a female for reproduction to take place. But when it comes to marriage, it is more about love than gender.

People get married because of love, not because they want babies. So they don’t get married for procreation purposes. In fact, not all married heterosexual couples want kids. So the main purpose of marriage is to make both individuals feel loved, not to procreate.

I am a proponent of same-sex marriage just like I am a proponent of interracial marriage. I don’t think people should be going around telling other people who to marry. People should marry the person they love regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, creed and religious beliefs. That’s what I believe.

Feb 14 2014

Darguste, Mezile and Racine seek to police behavior in Haiti

Josette Darguste, Minister of Culture

Josette Darguste, Minister of Culture

You have 3 women at the highest level of our Haitian government -Josette Darguste, Yanick Mezile and Magalie Racine -respectively Minister of Culture, Minister of Women’s Rights and Minister of Youth and Sports, who probably are in their 50s, thinking that they can police behavior in the country. They are trying to tell women how to dress and dance “appropriately” in public festivities.

This is a war they are not going to win because wars against time can never be won; time always comes out victorious.

What these ministers need to be reminded of is that morality cannot be regularized, for what is perceived to be immoral for them may be moral for others. Haiti is not a theocratic state; it is, rather, a secular state. Therefore, they cannot be going around telling people what to wear and how to dance in public. This is absurd.

What is going on in the Haitian society today is what we call in sociology “clash of generations,” which we witness in almost every human society. The older folks always believe that their generations were better than the emerging ones. And that in itself is a misconception.

Yanick Mezile, Minister of Women's Rights

Yanick Mezile, Minister of Women’s Rights

The emerging generations are not “bad” or “deviant” as some want to believe; they are simply different than their predecessors.

These folks who now think they can police behavior in our society, at some point in time, their generations too were viewed as “bad” in the eyes of those from the generations that preceded theirs.

So instead of badmouthing these young women for the way they are, thinking that we are or were better than them, we need to understand and embrace them as they are NOT going to change; they are not going to be like Darguste, Mezile, Racine and the rest of you conservative-minded Haitians want them to be.

Magalie Racine, Minister of Youth and Sports

Magalie Racine, Minister of Youth and Sports

These young women will be at the Carnival in their tank tops and boy shorts or “pantalon san fouk” doing their Dutty Wine. Those of you who don’t welcome or like the way they are, go ahead and arrest them to see if that is not going to cause an international outcry, enough to embarrass or shame the entire nation.

We act like we are living on an isolated and remote planet called Haiti all by ourselves. The world is forever connected more than ever before, so cultural protectionism is not the way to go as it will render us outdated and out of realm. Even Cuba is now trying to open up because these folks have finally come to the conclusion that cultural protectionism or isolationism is hurting them tremendously.

Dec 25 2013

Nicolas Duvalier Possibly Running For Office Gets Lavalas Going Ballistic

Nicolas Duvalier posing with kids at a toy distribution event for Christmas.

Nicolas Duvalier posing with kids at a toy distribution event for Christmas.

These Lavalas folks are in a state of panic attack –after they got the news that NICOLAS DUVALIER, the son of former President Jean Claude Duvalier, could be running for some type of elected office in Haiti. They are now making all types of nonsensical statements to prove that him running for office is an insult to the Haitian people.

Now I feel compelled to really talk to these folks. History is there to judge all of us, not just the Duvaliers. Don’t judge Nicolas based on his dad’s political accomplishments or report card, which he has absolutely nothing to do with, when you did not do any better when you had your chance to run the country and make a positive difference.

Lavalas came in power in Haiti after the fall of the Duvalier regime and spent 20 years destroying everything Duvalier had left behind. The 20 years of the Lavalas regime [1991-2011] had moved the country 50 years back. We are now in the past playing catch-up towards the future. And you want to blame all the problems and setbacks of the country solely on the Duvaliers? When will you be bold enough to assume your part of the blame?

Lavalas has the nerve badmouthing the Duvaliers because they ran Haiti with an iron fist -a dictatorship so to speak. Well, at least we knew we were dealing with a pure dictatorship, not one with a mask of democracy -like Aristide had it.

Lavalas came in power in 1991 and did the exact same thing they are now blaming the Duvaliers for. You would be a fool to believe that under the Lavalas regime Haiti had a democracy. Aristide had his armed thugs [chimè, rat pa kaka, etc.] on the streets terrorizing the population; muzzling the press; lynching journalists, professionals, business owners, etc… He had plunged the country in a total state of institutionalized lawlessness and chaos. That’s what had gotten the people to come together on their feet as one to drag him out of power in 2004.

You are accusing the Duvaliers of emptying our treasury, right? Show me that you Lavalas did not do just as worse. Your administrations were corrupted. In fact, Aristide came in power as a poor defrocked priest who did not even have an income, he left multimillionaire. We are still waiting on him to tell us what he had done with the money of these poor Haitians who had placed all their hard-earned earnings in “cooperative” investments. He ransacked all these accounts. He is a crook in disguise.

I could go on and on, but I am going to stop here for now. But don’t assume that only the Duvaliers have a past. You Lavalas have one, too. In fact, yours is recent history, meaning fresh in our memory bank. Yet, in spite of all, your organization [Fanmi Lavalas] is still trying so desperately to make a comeback. And you have the nerve telling us that NICOLAS DUVALIER running for elected office is an insult to the Haitian people? How dare you!

All I am saying to my Lavalas folks is this: you should be the last group of people in our political world to be judging Nicolas Duvalier. If he meets all the requirements set by the electoral organization, only his constituency can determine if he is not good enough for them. Meanwhile, if he decides to run, instead of wasting your time judging him based on his father’s report card, which I think is futile -since he has nothing to do with that, you better get yourself ready to send someone capable and qualified to challenge him. Otherwise, he will be elected, and that will be your worst nightmare.