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Haiti The President as Strongman
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Presidential Palace with statue of the Unknown Maroon in
foreground, Port-au-Prince
Courtesy United States Agency for International Development (John
Metelsky)
The focus of Haitian politics has always been the
presidency.
Weakly developed separation of powers has reflected this
situation. Legislative bodies and elections, which have
existed
for centuries, have generally only assisted the chief of
state in
obtaining whatever he wished.
Haitian writers have often described the country's
obsession
with the presidency in pathological terms. As a young
writer,
long before he became president, François Duvalier
identified the
historical "mania for the presidency" as the disease of
"presidentitis." Earlier generations of Haitian
intellectuals had
also bemoaned the destructive social effects of the
presidency-for-life. This obsession continued to be an
important
political issue throughout the twentieth century.
As a result of the life-and-death power he wielded over
the
citizenry, the president has historically acquired a
godlike
quality. Presidents rarely represented a coalition of
interest
groups that joined forces through Western-style debate,
compromise over party platforms, and competition at the
polls.
Rather, the president usually headed a faction that seized
control of the state by any means possible, with the
support of
the army. In the process, the president became the
personal
embodiment of the state. François Duvalier wrote it in
lights on
the public square, proclaiming "I am the Haitian flag. He
who is
my enemy is the enemy of the fatherland." State and nation
merged
in the person of the president. In Haitian politics, there
was no
real distinction between state and government. Presidents
could
therefore claim with some justification that they were the
state.Political parties and candidates also focused on the
presidency. A plethora of individuals competed for the
presidency; no true political parties existed. The
emphasis on
the presidency has hampered constitutional reforms
designed to
establish a sharing of power, free elections, and local
representation. The emphasis also conflicted with the wave
of
popular expectations unleashed by the fall of Duvalier in
1986.
Heightened expectations for change clashed with the
regressive
politics of old-line Duvalierists and tonton
makouts. This
clash contributed to the protracted post-Duvalier crisis
of
succession.
Data as of December 1989
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