27444: Hermantin(News)Planter runs on goals of jobs, health, safety (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

lhermantin@hotmail.com

Miami Herald

Posted on Fri, Feb. 03, 2006


CANDIDATE
Planter runs on goals of jobs, health, safety
Prominent Haitian businessman Charles Henri Baker says he is the one to lead 
Haiti out of its chaos.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - He is a pro-business presidential hopeful, a tobacco and 
tomato farmer with little political experience who has promised to pull Haiti 
out of its security and economic chaos.

But Charles Henri Baker's chances to upset frontrunner René Préval in the 
ballot Tuesday will depend, analysts say, largely on whether Haitians can set 
aside the color and class disputes that have long affected politics in this 
poverty-stricken nation.

''Charlito'' Baker, a leader of the political, business and civic coalition 
that helped force President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in 2004, has 
emerged from a field of 32 as the second-place presidential contender in public 
opinion polls.

A CLASS QUESTION

''One of the problems of Haiti is the lack of involvement of the mulatto elite. 
You have an elite that has economic means -- and education -- that is living in 
Haiti like foreigners,'' said Pierre-Marie Boisson, a friend and 
Harvard-trained economist. The 50-year-old Baker says he prefers not to focus 
on his status as a member of Haiti's mulatto elite, the great grandson of a 
white Englishman who married an African, and a factory and farm owner who 
speaks flawless English and Creole.

''The fact there is insecurity, the fact there are no jobs, the fact women are 
dying because they don't have a doctor to go to when they are giving birth, the 
fact that three-quarters of the cities don't have a hospital, don't have any 
policemen, don't have a judge, these are the things that are important to the 
Haitian people. Not my color,'' said Baker.

Baker gained prominence as a leading figure in the anti-Aristide Group 184 
coalition. But he quickly became frustrated with the U.S.-backed interim 
government put in place after Aristide fled the country to arrange new 
elections.

''I was hoping we were getting an interim government that would set us on the 
path to democracy,'' Baker told The Miami Herald this week in a lengthy 
interview in his walled Port-au-Prince home, protected by armed guards. ``I 
realized nothing was being done. It was same old, same old.''

Within six weeks he had garnered 120,000 signatures to get onto the ballot. 
Later he aligned himself with one of Haiti's most powerful peasant organizers, 
Chavannes Jean-Baptiste. A one-time Aristide supporter, Jean-Baptiste also 
supported Préval, who served as president from 1996 to 2001, before becoming 
disillusioned with both men.

DISTANT SECOND

A CID-Gallup poll in December showed Baker a distant second to Préval with 10 
percent compared to the former president's 37 percent. His supporters, the 
pollsters reported, ``can be found outside of Port-au-Prince, those with high 
school studies and those who self-declare themselves as independents.''

Baker's detractors admire his courage for standing up against Aristide but they 
question his ability to lead Haiti out of its chaos and his image as a 
successful businessman, saying his wealth was all inherited.

Baker told The Miami Herald that he owns about $2 million in lands he inherited 
and a garment factory that makes uniforms for a U.S. client.

In his spacious home, where supporters have gathered to talk strategy, boxes 
are piled with campaign give-aways. There are packets of M&Ms with Baker's 
campaign sign, the number 44, and calendars showing a colorfully decorated 
Haitian bus and the slogan in Creole, ``There is room for everybody.''

But in a country where the perception of class and color remains important, 
Baker has found himself on the campaign trail dropping proverbs in flawless 
Creole, hoping to show his audiences that despite his light skin and silver 
hair, he is as Haitian as them.

''If the people vote Charles Baker to be president, that means they don't have 
a problem with my color,'' he said. ``If they don't want someone from the upper 
class or supposedly the elite to be president they won't vote for me. I am 
willing to take that chance.''