#2896: Another "phrase" (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: J. David Lyall <david@lyalls.net>

>The operation restored
>President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected
>leader since the founding of the Haitian republic in 1804.

Here is this phrase, another notorious one in news reports
about Haiti.

They do not mean, of course, "first elected" president,
as many, if not most, presidents of Haiti have been elected
by whatever rules were in force at the time. Usually
that was election by the Senate, no? 

What the news hounds are presumably referring to is
direct election by the citizenry. The US does not enjoy
this right today of course. It would follow that the USA
has never had a democratic election of a president.

My particular interest in this question tho is who was 
the first Haitian president elected under universal suffrage
in a direct election. Wasn't Francois Duvalier the first
president elected under these circumstances?

Enquiring minds want to know.


----
J. David Lyall,
  [ Jedidiah Daudi in full ki-Swahili ]
http://www.lyalls.net/
david@lyalls.net