ARISTIDE BREAKS YET ANOTHER PROMISE… BEFORE HIS RETURN TO HAITI, ARISTIDE PROMISED TO STAY OUT OF POLITICS: HE WAS GOING TO FOCUS ON EDUCATION…

By TRENTON DANIEL Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti May 5, 2013 (AP)

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is trying to rebuild his political party as the Caribbean nation prepares for legislative and local elections, a prominent hotelier said Sunday.

Richard Morse, manager of the famed 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 a vote that’s supposed to be held before year’s end. The husband and wife also met with a leader of Aristide’s Lavalas Family party.

“He’s back, and he’s trying to get good people on his team,” Morse said by telephone. “I think he feels that his party has to become a player and bring people together.”

The Morses are still considering Lunise Exume Morse’s candidacy for the west department, which includes the capital of Port-au-Prince, Morse said. Married since 1989, the couple sings together in a popular voodoo-inspired rock band that performs at the Oloffson on Thursday nights.

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 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.

Narcisse said last month that Lavalas 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.

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1 thought on “ARISTIDE BREAKS YET ANOTHER PROMISE… BEFORE HIS RETURN TO HAITI, ARISTIDE PROMISED TO STAY OUT OF POLITICS: HE WAS GOING TO FOCUS ON EDUCATION…

  1. The only promises Aristide keeps is to break them!

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