27488: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Candidate Profiles (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By The Associated Press

   Here are some of the most notable candidates running in Haiti's
presidential election on Tuesday:

   -- Rene Preval, 63.
   The front-runner, according to polls, is a shy, soft-spoken former
agronomist who led Haiti from 1996 to 2001, the only elected Haitian
president to finish his five-year term.
   A Belgian-educated activist, Preval became a close ally of Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, who became Haiti's first democratically elected president in
1990.
   Preval followed Aristide into exile when the army overthrew him in a
September 1991 coup and returned after a U.S. invasion restored Aristide to
power three years later.
   Preval's election marked Haiti's first peaceful transition from one
elected president to another since Haiti won independence in 1804.
   Preval left office and went to live in his grandmother's house in a
rural town where he devoted himself to local development projects.
   Many Haitians believe he would allow Aristide to return from exile in
South Africa. Preval has said he would not prevent his return, but would
govern without the ousted president's interference

   -- Charles Henry Baker, 50.
   An independent candidate, Baker comes from an elite business family,
which runs factories in the assembly-for-export industry. His slogan is
"Order, Discipline, Work."
   He was one of the leaders of Group 184, a coalition of organizations
that led street protests before Aristide was toppled in an armed rebellion
in February 2004.
   Baker, who was briefly jailed by Aristide, has the support of a part of
the business elite and peasant leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste. Many have
questioned whether Baker, who is light-skinned, can gain widespread support
in the largely black nation.

   -- Leslie Manigat, 75.
   Manigat was president for five months in 1988 after winning elections
rigged by the military. The army ousted him when he tried to shake up its
high command.
   An expert on international affairs, he has financial backing from
members of the business elite. His party belongs to the Christian Democrat
movement.

   -- Serge Gilles, 69.
   A longtime activist, he founded the Haitian Socialist Party and was a
senator from 1990 to 1994. He represents the Fusion party, an alliance of
three Social Democratic parties. The French Socialist party has endorsed
his candidacy.

   -- Guy Philippe, 37.
   A youthful former police chief who fled Haiti in October 2000 after he
and other top officers were accused of plotting a coup against Aristide. He
led a group of ex-soldiers and paramilitary recruits who crossed the
Dominican border in February 2004 and helped force Aristide from power in a
bloody, three-week revolt.
   Philippe once said former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was his
hero.

   -- Dany Toussaint, 48.
   As a young army lieutenant, Toussaint was faithful to Jean-Claude
Duvalier until the dictator's February 1986 ouster. He later was elected
senator and allegedly helped arm street gangs loyal to Aristide.
   Toussaint was a suspect in the April 2000 assassination of top Haitian
journalist and opinion maker Jean Dominique. He refused a court summons to
answer questions in the case and the Senate refused to lift his
parliamentary immunity.