Politics
Former Haiti president Aristide re-builds political party in bid to participate in legislative elections
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. PHOTO/File
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is trying to rebuild his political party as the country prepares for legislative and local elections.
Richard Morse, manager of the Hotel Oloffson, said he has met with Aristide three times in the past two weeks to discuss the possibility of his wife, Lunise Exume Morse, running under Aristide’s party as a senatorial candidate in elections that are supposed to be held before the end of this year. Both Morse and his wife also met with a leader of Aristide’s Lavalas Family party.
The Morses are still considering Lunise Exume Morse’s candidacy for the west department, which includes the Haitiona capital, Port-au-Prince, Morse said.
The admission by Morse caps widespread speculation over Aristide’s political ambitions following his return to Haiti in March 2011, and marks the first time he (Aristide) is reported to be making such moves.
Upon his return, Aristide criticized election officials for excluding his party from earlier legislative elections but then vanished from the public eye, opting to stay in his compound in the capital. His supporters said he was focusing on rebuilding his medical university.
On Thursday, Aristide is due to make his first public showing, aside from a few remarks during a brief television appearance with President Michel Martelly in 2011, as he heads to court to answer a judge’s questions about the case of a slain journalist. Lavalas spokeswoman Maryse Narcisse told Radio Espace FM on Sunday that Aristide was planning to go.
The visit to the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse is almost certain to draw thousands of his supporters.
Haiti was supposed to have held legislative and local elections in late 2011 but political infighting prevented authorities from creating an electoral council until last month.
Lavalas Family party indicated last month, that the party plans to run in the election.
Morse, a former Aristide supporter-turned-critic, is a first cousin to Martelly and worked as a Haitian envoy in Washington, D.C. Morse quit in January over what he described as “outright corruption” in the National Palace.