HAITI: Wyclef Jean insists he's eligible for Haitian presidency

BY NANCY SAN MARTIN AND JACQUELINE CHARLES JCHARLES@MIAMIHERALD.COM
LASSER, Haiti -- A somber Wyclef Jean held firm Friday that there was nothing in his conversation with Haitian President Rene Préval to indicate that he would not be among the final list of candidates allowed to compete in the Nov. 28 presidential ballot.
The conversation ``was not about stepping down,'' Jean told The Miami Herald during a morning visit to his rural hideaway.
Jean met with Préval Thursday afternoon, and said afterward, ``We feel we are going to be OK.''
The president, he said, was concerned about alleged death threats against him and asked if he needed more security. Préval said he wanted clean elections, and at one point put Jean on the phone with his presidential pick, Jude Celestin, the former head of the government's road-building outfit.
Jean said he asked Celestin to make good on a new road for his rural hometown and challenged the avid drag racer to a duel.
Asked why he thought Préval arranged the call, Jean said, he believed it was the president's way of showing that he didn't want any ``ugliness'' in the upcoming elections.
Préval has met with or intends to meet with some of the other nearly three dozen presidential hopefuls. He met with former Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who was passed over for Celestin as his INITE platform pick, and also planned to meet with others.
On Thursday night, supporters of Jean protested in front of the Provisional Electoral Council headquarters.
Jean said at least three of the eight sitting members of the country's electoral council are holding fast and are refusing to declare him ineligible.
But sources familiar with the debates of the council have told The Miami Herald that only the president of the council, Gaillot Dorsinvil, has been pushing Jean's candidacy, despite 20 pages of legal documents submitted as proof that he is not eligible to run.
Dorsinvil's staunch support has triggered rumors of possible payoffs. Dorsinvil told The Miami Herald that ``it is not true'' and the rumors are from people trying to destabilize the process.
Jean denied that he or anyone associated with him have made any payments.
He also said he had heard three members of the electoral council are trying to get exile because ``they are being pressured from all sides.''
Earlier this week, Haitian police tightened Haiti's porous borders with the Dominican Republic.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/20/1784883/wyclef-jean-insists-hes-eligible.html