Tag Archives: Senator Moise Jean-Charles

Dec 28 2014

Should Moise Jean-Charles Be Reelected To The Haitian Senate?

The job of a senator in any country’s senate is mainly to champion legislations that could better the lives of his/her constituents. This same definition does apply to all of our senators in the Haitian Senate, including Moise Jean-Charles, the senator from the country’s Northern District.

In light of that, has Moise Jean-Charles fulfilled successfully, commendably and honorably his legislative mission or responsibility? That’s a very good question, one that can be the object of a serious debate among the people in his constituency.

Depending on whom the question is directed to, the answer will be different. Some will say “yes,” some will say “no.” But regardless who wins this debate, one thing we know for certain is that we the people from the other districts did not send him to the Senate. So it does not come to us to make such determination.

With responsibility comes accountability –an important concept in public service and everything else in life. When you have the responsibility to do something, you must be held accountable. And that is exactly what is missing in the world of Haitian politics.

In Haiti, we have a representative democracy, meaning instead of having the entire 10 million of us talking about the issues that matter to us, we delegate people to do the job for us. And these people are in the country’s Parliament.  We call them senators and deputies.

So when you elect someone to represent you, when you delegate authority to someone to talk on your behalf and defend your interests, you have the utmost responsibility to hold that person accountable. And the fact that we do not have a culture of accountability in our politics, that poses a major hindrance or impediment to our democracy and, by proxy, the forward progression and upward mobility of our nation.

Now, let’s directly address the people from the Northern District, the people who elected Moise Jean-Charles to represent them in the country’s Senate. Your senator [Moise Jean-Charles] will be running for reelection, I presume. He will be coming to you to ask you to reelect him.  If you people are not a bunch of airheads, before you cast that vote to renew his employment contract to send him back to the Senate, you will evaluate his legislative report card to see the bills he had sponsored and cosponsored during his tenure as Senator of the Republic.

You people from the Northern District sent the man to the Senate, so it comes to you to evaluate and hold him accountable. The rest of us from the other districts cannot do your job for you; he is not running for the presidency –a statewide office. If he is going to run for president, then that will be a different story. But for now, if ever he decides to run for reelection, if ever he comes before you to ask for a renewal of his employment contract, you must exercise the power of your vote to deliberate on his legislative accomplishments. That, at the very least, is expected of you; that is your civic duty.

Jun 22 2012

Is Senator Anick Joseph A Political Comedian?

Senator Francois Anick Joseph

Senator Anick Joseph of the Artibonite District, someone I used to have great esteem and admiration for, is now scooping to the lowest of the lows. Just when you think he could have spent his time pushing to pass legislation to get his district, which used to be the food-generating engine for the country, back on its knees, he wants to spend his congressional time in pettiness trying to find out how much money these President Martelly’s top political advisers (Lambert, Latortue, etc…) are getting paid to advise the president. Seriously, is this the senator’s newest punchline in his career of political comedian or what?

See, this is what you call vile demagoguery politics. In the realness of things, for the sake of checks and balances, what the senator is doing is exactly the right thing to do, and I do not think any objection to that could have stood ground. But it seems as though these folks in the so-called opposition to the Martelly administration want to enforce the law, that is if such recommendation is one of the senator’s constitutional prerogatives, only when it best serves to advance their political agenda.

Where was Senator Anick Joseph then when Moise Jean Charles was working in the National Palace as President Preval’s political adviser? I am sure President Preval had, like President Martelly, a gang of political advisers, too. If so, where was Senator Anick? I guess he was not in the Senate at the time, for I did not hear his voice wanting to institute his concept of checks and balances. Well, let us not be too harsh on the senator. Maybe that law that gives him the authority to find out how much the President Martelly’s top political advisers are getting paid had not made its way in the books yet. Right, Senator Anick?

Now you see why no one really wants to take the motives of this man and his acolytes at face value, right? I think they are in the wrong business. I should have been watching them on television doing stand-up comedy; they are a bunch of political comedians to me.

Jan 21 2012

THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON MOISE JEAN-CHARLES

President Martelly played off the dual citizenship charge held against him by Moise Jean-Charles exactly the way he is supposed to. Asked during a press conference for his take on the allegation making believe that he is not a Haitian citizen, making him not fit to be president, President Martelly said: “Patne a tande mizik kote m te konn di ‘El unico Italiano que tenemos aqui en Haiti;’ m gen enpresyon misye fek tande mizik la epi misye di m se Italyen. Poze!”

Ridicule works in politics. President Obama had used the same card dealing with the birther movement, which Donald Trump was the leader of. He ridiculed Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and made him pass for someone not worthy being taken seriously. It worked for him in that it has damaged Trump’s political standing. Today, not even his own Republicans take him seriously. A guy like Karl Rove sees him as a disturbing joke.

In politics, perception is reality. When people have the impression that you are a clown, it is not a matter of impression anymore; it forever becomes a matter of reality, a matter of fact. That’s exactly the card President Martelly is playing, and I am urging him to keep playing it until he wins the game.

President Martelly and the accused members of his administration must NOT cooperate with the legislative commission put in place to get to the bottom of this citizenship issue.  The burden of proof is on Moise Jean-Charles to prove his allegations factual, accurate and evident; to prove that President Martelly is not Haitian. It should not be the other way around. If he could say that President Martelly and certain members of his administration are not Haitian, he must come forth with all the tangible facts to corroborate his stance; it is not President Martelly’s job and certainly not that of his lieutenants to prove that they are Haitian.

Moise Jean-Charles in my book is a clown using the Haitian Parliament as his circus to perform his grotesque comedies whenever he feels like it, and we Haitians are his spectators. He was making all this noise only to submit to the commission in charge of investigating his allegations an envelope containing two passport numbers, according to Senator Yvon Buissereth , a leading member of this commission.

Moise Jean-Charles really takes the Haitian people for a bunch of stupid and lunatic heads. I really don’t get it, though. You say you have proof that President Martelly and certain members of his administration are not Haitian, yet when you are being challenged to bring forth the facts you claim having, you submit an envelope containing only two passport numbers. That’s your evidence. If this is not laughable, I don’t know what is.

What I have found to be very appalling in this whole saga is the fact that his colleague senators are putting on hold serious matters to solve for the betterment of the people to investigate an issue which the main accuser himself cannot help to get to the bottom of.  What is that telling you? I don’t know about you, but that is telling me that we are dealing with nothing but clowns in this circus we call the Haitian Senate. Could you imagine having the US Senate listening to Donald Trump and going as far as probing the citizenship of President Obama? That would have never happened because, unlike these senators in the Haitian Senate, these US senators have serious issues to worry about. Therefore, paying attention to a clown like Donald Trump would be the least of their worries.

I am urging President Martelly to stay resolute. The strategy he is using thus far is the right one; he needs to keep it all the way. He needs to continue making Moise Jean-Charles look like a socially frustrated or dissatisfied character, who has gotten to that level of lowness due to his socioeconomic upbringing coupled with a political ideology rooted in class warfare.

President Martelly has got to go after Moise Jean-Charles politically speaking. Any violent action on his person is highly discouraged. Violence is not the solution. He must be destroyed politically.

Two things any politician has going for them: trust and credibility. Once you lose them, your political life is basically over. So Martelly has got to go after him on these two core components.

The Martelly camp needs to call on its public relations experts to mount a character assassination campaign against Moise Jean-Charles. You have got to have people in the mud doing your dirty work. Have  “private” organizations create ads to be published on the internet and run on all the major radio and television stations targeting him. Here in the US, we call these types of organizations Super PACs (Political Action Committees). Their works go beyond effective. Portray him as a mentally deranged individual who is willing to do and say anything to stop the administration from doing the people’s job. Doing so will have two major effects on this political faceoff:  1) it will forever damage Moise Jean-Charles’s political tenure; 2) it will put to rest once and for all the dual citizenship case.

I have no doubt that this issue will backfire so adamantly that each time Moise Jean-Charles is to make another foolish and baseless allegation, he will be constrained to shut his mouth; no one will take him seriously. He will become the laughingstock of the entire country.

Jan 6 2012

MOISE JEAN-CHARLES: SHOW US THE FACTS

Senator Moise Jean-Charles

A couple of months ago, for everyone who wanted to shake their tail, Moise Jean-Charles, the senator from the country’s northern district, was beating the “Pink Militia” drum to accuse President Martelly of constituting clandestinely his own illegal armed militia. After being challenged on many occasions by responsible members of the civil society, he backed off and trashed his baseless and ridiculous claim.

Just when everyone thought he was muzzled up and forced by his constituents in the North to do the job he was elected to the Senate to do, he is out again making noise. All this week, he has been touring almost all the media outlets in Port-au-Prince to market another one of his foolish and baseless diatribes. This time, he claims having conducted an “investigation” and the conclusion shows that President Martelly is a foreign citizen. I have a question for the senator, though: Senator, as someone who is elected by the Northern people to represent them in the country’s Senate, why don’t you do them a favor to officially publish the findings of your “investigation” to show all the FACTS you say you have in your possession to corroborate your claim?

I am dying to see these FACTS he claims having in his possession to prove President Martelly’s foreign citizenship. That is what I need to see, and that is when I will be convinced that, indeed, he is doing his job. All he has been doing since got to the people’s Senate is to engage in extrapolative work just to capture the spotlight and turn himself into the “superstar” of the chamber.

In my opinion, President Martelly must not give in; he must not cooperate with any investigation geared towards confirming his Haitian nationality; the Gaillot Dorsainvil Provisory Electoral Council had long taken care of that. They cannot say that the PEC knew of the president’s foreign citizenship and still gave him a free pass. That will not stick, not when we know all the machinations and trickeries these guys in the PEC and the Preval administration had gone through and how they had tried their hardest to torpedo his chances to win the election.

President Martelly must consider taking legal actions to force Senator Moise Jean-Charles to officially publish the findings of his “investigation.” In the event that he fails to do so, he must be prosecuted for libel or defamation of character. This is unacceptable. By his actions, he is doing the country a great disservice. He must stop engaging his office in doing extrapolative work, which endangers the stability and national security of the nation.