What assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse said in his inaugural address

Here are two stories from the Miami Herald archives on when Jovenel Moïse became president of Haiti in 2017. He was assassinated on Wednesday at his home.

Inauguration

Published Feb. 8, 2017

PORT-AU-PRINCE - A politically inexperienced banana farmer who campaigned on reinvigorating agriculture became Haiti’s 58th president Tuesday, promising to return law and order, root out corruption and put this dysfunctional nation back on the road to economic recovery and development.

“Haiti is back on the path to democracy,” Jovenel Moïse declared in his inaugural presidential address after taking the oath of office earlier in the day at Parliament before a guest list that included Haitian lawmakers, the vice president of Venezuela and a former reality star representing the Trump administration. “Today is not the victory of one camp over other camps, but it’s the victory of democracy. ... It’s Haiti’s victory and that of all Haitians.”

Moïse’s swearing-in effectively brings to an end a prolonged political crisis that stymied economic growth and tested international support at a time when Haiti needed them the most. The country still hasn’t recovered from its devastating Jan. 10, 2010, earthquake, and in October - in the midst of the crisis - Category 4 Hurricane Matthew nearly wiped out its southern peninsula.

Moïse, 48, now faces the overwhelming task of reconstructing a country ravaged by both disaster and decades of bad governance. And he will have to do it in a deeply divided society and in a context of greatly diminished foreign assistance and investments, a departing United Nations peacekeeping force, and looming money-laundering suspicions over his business dealings.

A political protégé of former President Michel Martelly, who attended both the swearing-in at Parliament and the larger event on the presidential palace grounds, Moïse comes into office with a legal cloud that could cripple his presidency and further destabilize Haiti.

He’s the target of an ongoing money-laundering probe by the government’s anti-financial crimes unit. The probe was launched in 2013 under Martelly’s administration, and then transferred to an investigative judge under interim President Jocelerme Privert.

Late Monday, government prosecutor Danton Léger ordered the judge to launch a complementary investigation by interviewing the first lady and three others.

Moïse has maintained his innocence and dismissed the allegations as the work of political enemies. He made no mention of his pending legal problems during his 25-minute address in Creole and French under a replica of the quake-destroyed palace.

Instead, he emphasized that during his presidential term, “justice will be impartial and fair,” and the country’s diaspora, “who want to return home, will be able to do so without being scared.”

“Never, never ... will justice be used in Haitian institutions as an instrument for political persecution,” he said, a statement that received a standing ovation from many in the crowd that also included Dominican President Danilo Medina and Guyana President David Granger. “We are all Haitians, and we will build one Haiti for all Haitians.”

Eric Jean-Baptiste, a former presidential candidate who had supported Moïse’s closest presidential competitor, Jude Célestin, said he thought the president’s promises to unite different factions, combat corruption and strengthen institutions “are extremely important considering that he has a case before the justice system, and says that he will let justice do its job.”

“I wish him good luck,” Jean-Baptiste said. “If the president succeeds, it is Haiti that succeeds. Five years is short and it is long. It’s long when there are bad decisions that are being taken, and it’s very short when there are good decisions being taken on behalf of the country.”

Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia, said that while the current situation in Haiti “invites pessimism, Jovenel Moïse may have a small window of opportunity to create a renewed sense of hope.”

“Unlike his predecessor and mentor, Michel Martelly, he will enjoy a parliamentary majority which should allow him, at least in the short term, to govern more effectively and without fear of confronting a quasi-permanent opposition,” Fatton said, referring to the number of legislative seats Moïse and Martelly’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK) and its allies were able to secure in the recent elections.

Haiti’s recent rough times might actually help the new president, Fatton added. “Low popular expectations and the political fatigue generated by years of protests may paradoxically give President Moïse the chance to enjoy a period of badly needed stability to forge new programmatic priorities and policies.”

Moïse also faces another external pressure. Besides the imminent departure of the U.N. peacekeeping force after 12 years, Haitians continue to leave by the plane and boatload. There are more than 4,000 along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to enter the U.S.

“The government of Haiti will be pressed to take some responsibility for those Haitians who have piled up along the Mexican border,” said Robert Maguire, a professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Conditions in Haiti, he said, “are once again pushing Haitians to desperation. This only adds to Mr. Moïses’ problems and challenges.”

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Roman Catholic Cardinal Chibly Langlois reminded Moïse that he has a moral duty to serve all of Haiti.

“Today, you are the one who has the huge honor and the moral duty to serve all Haitians, women or men,” Langlois said. “You are the president of all Haitians without distinctions.”

Jovenel Moïse became Haiti’s 58th president.

Presidential election

Published Jan. 4, 2017

Haiti’s seemingly unending presidential election is over.

Jovenel Moïse, a businessman from northern Haiti and political protégé of former President Michel Martelly, was declared the winner of the country’s November presidential election Tuesday by the country’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). He defeated 26 other candidates in an election rerun from the year before and then repeatedly postponed, once by a hurricane.

The council published the result after an electoral court rejected allegations of “massive fraud” during the Nov. 20 election. Though a judges’ panel had discovered some irregularities during verification of 12 percent of the ballots, the council said the irregularities were not enough to affect the final outcome of the vote.

On his Facebook page, Moïse promised that his five-year presidency will be marked by “active will and vigilant pragmatism.”

Moïse, 48, was declared the winner with 55.60 percent. His closest competitor, Jude Célestin, the former head of the state construction agency, finished a distant second with just over 19.57 percent. Célestin’s final vote total only rose slightly after the verification, which he and two others demanded after challenging the preliminary results.

“I do not recognize these results because neitherI nor my representatives were present,” Célestin, 54, told the Miami Herald.

He said the CEP didn’t handle the challenge to the results correctly. “They are definitely hiding something.”

Three days into the verification, Célestin’s attorneys - as well as those representing third- and fourth-place finishers Jean-Charles Moïse and Maryse Narcisse - left the Vote Tabulation Center after judges restricted their access to tally sheets. Attempts to remove the judges and to have the restrictions lifted were rejected by the CEP.

Haiti last year agreed to redo its first round of the presidential vote after a five-member Independent Commission of Evaluation and Verification, appointed by interim President Jocelerme Privert, ruled that the vote was such a disaster it should start over.

The fraud allegations, which Moïse had insisted were untrue, sparked violent street protests. The crisis led to Martelly ending his presidential term on Feb. 7 without an elected successor, and brought Haiti its second caretaker government in 12 years.

This week, violent protests once more flared up. As supporters of Narcisse’s Fanmi Lavalas political party protested in Port-au-Prince, Célestin called on his supporters to remain mobilized. On Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy advised U.S. citizens to stay away from one neighborhood - Delmas 65 - after receiving reports of demonstrations.

Calling on Haiti’s opposition to accept the results, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the publication of the final presidential results is “a positive step for the full restoration of that nation’s democratic institutions.”

Still, the tensions do not bode well for Moïse, a serial entrepreneur who campaigned under the moniker Neg Bannan Nan or the Banana Man, a reference to his farming roots. Though he has never held elected office, he now must take charge of a country wracked by political instability and chronic problems. They include double-digit inflation, anemic economic growth, drastically reduced foreign aid, a rapidly depreciating currency, a deadly cholera epidemic and growing security concerns with the eventual departure of the United Nations peacekeeping force known as MINUSTAH.

Since 2014, Haiti’s economic growth has shrunk from 2.9 percent to 1.4 percent last year even before Hurricane Matthew slammed the country’s southern peninsula as a Category 4 storm, causing $2.8 billion in damages.

Meanwhile, inflation stands at 12 percent and could go to at least 15 percent this year, said Port-au-Prince economist Kesner Pharel, who noted that preliminary forecasts show 1 percent economic growth.

“The numbers are extremely scary,” Pharel said. “We’re looking at no jobs in the economy, and more than 25 percent of people in extreme poverty and more than 60 percent in poverty.

“It’s going to be a very difficult situation for the new government coming in,” he added, “coming from an election where not too many people participated.”

Even with his Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK) political party and allies likely to have a majority in parliament, Moïse faces the prospect of a weakened presidency because a minority bloc of lawmakers will be able to block legislation.

“The situation is extremely complicated,” said Pierre Esperance, a leading human rights advocate, whose criticism of the verification process got him a threatening letter and bullet in the mail last week.

As the country’s 58th president, Moïse faces several challenges, Esperance said.

“The first problem is the parliament. Haiti has taken a huge step back when you look at this parliament. The way it is configured, it will give the a president a lot of blockage, even if theoretically, he has a majority,” he said.

Among those who recently won a six-year seat in parliament: Guy Philippe, a Moïse ally and former coup leader, who is wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under a sealed indictment accusing him of cocaine trafficking and money laundering.

A second problem confronting Moïse is Haiti’s powerful private sector, which largely supported his campaign. Their demands for a return on their investments could complicate matters more in a deeply divided nation. The third is the country’s weakened institutions and how Moïse plans to reinforce them.

“He will need to strengthen the effectiveness of an extremely weak state, curb corruption and rebuild basic institutions,” said Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia. “For the past 30 years, every government has promised to address these structural problems and met with failure. A combination of internal political struggles, external interventions and natural disasters has caused this failure.”

Not helping matters is the low voter turnout, estimated at 21 percent by Haiti’s elections body. The number indicates that the majority of Haitians have become disengaged from the governing process, an even bigger challenge for Moïse.

“While Jovenel Moïse won the elections by a wide margin, it is not clear that he obtained a mandate,” said Fatton.”He will need both unusual luck and exceptional leadership qualities to reconcile a class-divided nation, and build a political consensus on which to begin the long overdue reconstruction of Haiti. Again, his task is nothing short of monumental.”

But the first order of business for Moïse, who is expected to be sworn in on Feb. 7, isn’t even economics and finance, longtime Haiti experts say.

“It has to be politics,” said Pharel, the economist. “The social tensions are very high and Jovenel has to talk to the political parties and get them around the table. He has to reduce the political tensions. ... He’s got to show that he’s not going to be Michel Martelly, always fighting with words, engaged in political fights, and will create a better environment on the political side.”