Haitian Actor Jimmy Jean-Louis Comments On Wyclef's Denial For Presidency

I met Wyclef on several occasions. The first one was a while back. I was still living in London and it was when the Fugees first came out. I met him at the MTV Awards. We did “We Are the World Together,” and there were a couple of other things where I’d see him around here and there. I just saw him in Miami not too long ago. I know a little bit of who he is but I don’t know the man, really. At the same time I will say he’s been promoting Haiti since the get go.

Ever since The Fugees came out, he was one of the first ones to actually take the flag and put it out there. So he did great things as an artist for Haiti. As far as governing the country, that’s a different ball game. Does he have what it takes to take care of Haiti? I don’t know. I didn’t have a chance to thoroughly go through most of the projects that he had to do with Haiti.

It’s difficult to speak about Wyclef's situation because we know that he’s not going to be able to run. From what I understand [residency] is not officially the reason why he was denied. There was no official reason said, so far all of those are just speculations. But at the same time I have to say his involvement brought a lot of light on the situation because now everybody knows there’s an election going on, November 28. So now everybody has to try our best to have a good election, to select a good president and work toward rebuilding Haiti.

I would just have to take some time to study each of the candidates to know who they are, what they’ve been doing for the past 10 to 20 years and look at the plans that they have for the future of Haiti. So based on the response I would get from those candidates, that’s how I would know who I would be able to vote for.

But one thing I’ll say about the Haitian Diaspora is that we need to include the whole Diaspora because without the Haitian Disapora, then Haiti will not be going anywhere. We all have to work together. Everybody needs to come together, put their egos aside and take care of the country. Whether it’s going to be politicians from Haiti or politicians from outside of Haiti, it doesn’t matter. The problem is bigger than the person, them selves. ⎯As Told To Starrene Rhett