The elections are over in Haiti, or at least when it comest to the first round of presidential balloting. Since December 6, 1956, Haiti has had to fight its demons to engage in the process of changing rulers and applying the rule of law for the advent of democracy. Paul E. Magloire had to leave the country because he was manipulating the terms of his mandate to remain in power longer.

The Duvaliers did not accept even the idea of leaving the national palace. Military leaders were passing the ball to each other. Jean Bertrand Aristide, albeit expunged twice from power, did manage to place his nemesis, Rene Preval into the coveted seat. The latter realized two mandates and has tried to get a third one through a third persona. Michel Martelly insists that his brand is the right one for Haiti.

Removing my commentator hat to wear the hat of a candidate was, to put it simply, exhilarating, humbling and disconcerting. It seems that my passion to become the president of Haiti had a long origin. I recently discovered an old notebook that dates back to my early teens in which I had written that I wanted to become president.

When I interrogated my mother concerning this precocious goal, she told me that my concern for those who were trapped in lasting poverty and in desolation was acute at a young age. Haiti has been for the past 60 years of my existence, pure hell for the majority of its population. Yet it is a paradise-like nation that surprises and amazes any foreigner even while completely inhospitable to its rural and marginalized urban ghetto population.

From a small country boasting epic revolutionary glory equalled only by the French and the American Revolutions, Haiti has sunk into a perverse hole where the configuration of its population is exactly the same as in colonial times. Some 85 percent were slaves with no rights during colonial times. Today some 85 percent of the rural and urban ghetto dwellers have responsibilities but still with no rights. There were 11 percent enfranchised mulattoes with some rights; there are today 11 percent middle class people sinking slowly into poverty. Four percent were great planters in St. Domingue; four percent of the population are very well-off Haitians today.

In Haiti, colonial times lasted 300 years and it seems there is a conspiracy inside and outside the country to have what could be rightly called a de facto apartheid system, last as long as the colonial one. There were some 150 contenders at the beginning of the electoral course. It had been reduced to 54 by the electoral board. I was competing with some candidates who had big name recognition and plenty of dough to spread around. Yet I knew I had a vision that I have compiled it into a book; if only I could have half of the population read my book or hear a commentary in the press about it, the dice would be played, and I would gain the votes one by one to become president of Haiti.

The national press received my book, not one of them took the time to write a review. A national commentator with plenty of followers in the motherland and in the diaspora would only joke about seeing me buying avocados in front of my home.
Yet Haiti is thirsty for a man with vision. Here was the Ecce homo with the vision but most of the press were too greedy for the hilarious, the superficial or for the money man to take the bait.

I have resurrected Ernest Renan and his doctrine for Haiti and for the rest of the world, the ultimate tool for building a good and excellent nation. He has been buried by the dark forces that divide the world into the haves and the have nots since 1888, the breakdown of the big empires sharing the world for their own benefit.

Bringing Renan to the Western Hemisphere would do wonders, as it did in the Eastern Hemisphere for the whole Tiger Triangle (with the exception of the Philippines) for nations as diverse as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Vietnam.

Haiti could become in the next five years a wonder nation that cares for its citizens so that they would be no longer nomads in their own home and abroad, mainly in Florida, the Turks and Caicos, The Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and recently Brazil. The people would develop the sentiment of belonging, while those in extreme need would be pushed forward so they will catch up with the rest of society. Haiti would be doing what it has always done, leading the way for the rest of the Caribbean region to become fully developed while being a heaven for its own citizens.

Campaigning, for the candidates, amounted to who could paste the largest number of pictures of themselves on public and private walls. It was also who could gather the largest crowd for a photo op, sometimes moving the same crowd at great cost from one city to another. It was also a hired crowd that could be seen for different candidates as long as the bought citizen could expect to receive his small sum of money and his joint of tafia (the Haitian distilled vodka called clairin or tafia), or a t-shirt with the name of the candidate on it.

Misery breeds more misery - in return, Haitian citizens treat their candidate as a cash cow from whom he must suck the most milk, knowing very well he will not obtain anything else whence this candidate becomes a fully elected official. There were several debates on TV, but the crowd-moving candidates would argue that they have no time for such an intellectual exercise. The party in which I was running to become president of the country turned out to be a mafia-like instrument used just to squeeze the state for contributions offered every five years to presidential candidates.

I am the third candidate in the past 15 years trapped in that hole. I had to go to court to claim the state contribution for my campaign. In the meantime, some of my mandates for my poll supervisors have been sold to another party, presumably the government-sponsored one. But for these odds, or because of them, my standing in the polls is not among the first top 10 winners. I gained enough followers amongst the poor and the not so poor through the Renan nation building concept that they were like apostles preaching silently and discreetly, as in the first century of Christianity, the five verses of the new religion all over the country.

o Create a nation with the sentiment of proper behavior amongst all.

o Build a country with sane institutions and excellent infrastructure from the bush to the capital so the citizens will no longer be nomads in their own country and abroad.

o Push forward with a generous sentiment those who have been left behind in society.

o Find the divine mission of the nation and fulfill it for a better world.

o Bow out and say goodbye with no strings attached at the end of your term, after having served the nation well.

In a political process so tortuous it is quite clear that the average Haitian citizen has no faith in the process. His life has not been changed one iota from one government to another. As such, he is quite cynical about his voting power. He wants to be paid immediately for his vote whatever the cost for the future.

The results are out. The presidential candidate, Jovenel Moise, is in front with 32 percent of the vote in his favor and Jude Celestin in second place with 25 percent of the balloting. The day of the election was calm and peaceful but all hell broke loose as soon as the results were proclaimed.

The people committed to the losing candidates, in particular those of Pitit Dessalines, a former senator, and Jean Charles Moise, have promised that the next Haitian revolution has begun. Those of Lavalas, the party of Jean Bertrand Aristide led by Dr Maryse Narcisse and those of Jude Celestin have cried foul over vote manipulation in favor of the official candidate of the government.

What happens next will depend whether there will be a coalescence of the opposing parties to put all their muscle in the same direction to fight as one against the demons of past and present governments that refuse to leave power in Haiti. They always fight tooth and nail to keep power indefinitely. Haiti will be going through some turbulent seas within the next few weeks. Nothing new under the sun - it has been going into chaos and the abyss for the last 60 years!

I might have to impose Ernest Renan on Haiti and the Caribbean region by other means than the political, by building a "Conch Triangle" in the Antilles that can compete in prosperity and development with the Tiger Triangle in South East Asia.

o Jean H Charles LLB, MSW, JD is a syndicated columnist with Caribbean News Now. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com and followed at: Caribbeannewsnow/Haiti.

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