14 DAY TRIAL // When Haiti was wrecked by earthquakes at the beginning of the year, one of the most active celebrities in raising money for the people here and the rescue missions was singer Wyclef Jean. With his Yele Haiti foundation alone, Wyclef raised over $9 million, which goes to show just how dedicated he is to lending a helping hand to the country where he was born and raised until he was 9 years old. Now, he’ll be given a chance to do even more, the New York Times confirms.
In other words, Wyclef will be running for President of Haiti in the November elections and, though he’s yet to announce his candidacy officially, he’s already speaking about it. In a conversation with the NY Times over the phone, the star says he couldn’t possibly go back to making music now that he’s seen what is happening in his country, because it wouldn’t seem fair to him anymore. In this sense, his running for President is not so much a choice but a calling, in that he’s being given a chance to make a change.
And he wants to take that chance. “You can either live trying to do something or die having done nothing. [I don’t want to be] somebody who, after the devastation of the country that he claimed he loved so much, just kept singing more songs. I’m not running for president so much as I’m being drafted. The youth, in their mind if I don’t come and put a perspective to things, they feel there’s no future for the country, and I have to agree with them. People will say, ‘Man, Clef, what does he know about politics?’ All I know is I’m a natural leader, and I will surround myself with top-notch policy experts,” the singer says for the aforementioned publication.
Though Wyclef is optimistic about his candidacy, word that he’s even considering running for President has been received with very mixed reactions. “Other people make promises and don’t deliver, but Wyclef has heart. If he says he’ll do something, we’ll trust him. And besides, he already has all the money he needs. So he won’t steal from us like the others,” a woman says. Camille Chalmers, director of the Haitian Platform to Advocate for Alternative Development, strongly disagrees, saying, “It’s a catastrophe. It’s a reflection of the weakness of the political class of Haiti that the system is at the mercy of a mediagenic person who flies in from abroad.”
Two of the conditions to be a candidate in Haiti is to have citizenship and to have had permanent residency in the country for 5 years or more, with Wyclef meeting both of them. He was born in Croix des Bouquets and has a Haitian passport. Moreover, even if he spent the last 30 years living in the US, you don’t have to be in a particular place to care about what happens with it, Wyclef says.
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