Ramon Espinosa/AP
Wyclef Jean, the hip-hop singer who last week announced he is running to become president of Haiti, is not the first musician to seek elected office. Nor is he the first aspiring leader to return to his homeland after spending the better part of three decades somewhere else and expect to be welcomed back as its political saviour.
But most political neophytes start with smaller ambitions, or more impressive qualifications. Jean wants to run a country still reeling from an earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people earlier this year, and manage its multi-billion-dollar recovery effort. He has never before held elected office.
He has, however, sung about it. In a 2008 song, If I Was President, he predicts “Muslims, Jews, and Christians would all hold hands, every week on the beach, party by the sand,” and promises “better schools in the hood, better teachers for the classes, making money, paying no taxes.”
Haitians might reasonably hope Jean will do a better job managing their taxes than he has his own.
According to the CBS-owned Florida television station WFOR, which cited New York, New Jersey and Florida court records, Jean and his wife, Marie Claudinette, owe more than US$5 million in federal and state tax liens dating back to 2004 on property they own. The Smoking Gun website had previously reported that Jean owed more than US$2 million in liens. Questioned about this when he announced his presidential bid on CNN, Jean said “everything is paid up.”
Jean has also come under fire for the financial management of his charitable foundation, Yéle Haiti. It was founded in 2005, but IRS “990” forms for the years 2005 through 2007 were not filed until 2009. These reveal that Jean and a business partner/relative were paid nearly US$400,000 by the charity for rent, production services, and Jean’s appearance at a benefit concert. In 2006 alone, half of the approximately US$1 million raised was spent on salaries, rent, promotions, public relations, and consultant and professional fees.
JEAN’S FAMILY left Haiti when he was nine, and he spent most of the subsequent 30 years in America. According to Haiti’s electoral rules, Jean should not be permitted to run for president because he has not lived in Haiti continuously for the past five years. Jean responds by saying he had been “elected” by Haiti’s outgoing president, René Préval, to be Haiti’s goodwill ambassador and therefore needed to be outside the country promoting it to the world.
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