Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean wants to be the next Haitian president. The former Fugees singer announced his candidacy on 5 August, just a few days before the registration deadline. Not much is known about his election programme, but his fame and commitment with Haiti are to make up for that.
 
Regarding his plans for Haiti - the poorest country in the northern hemisphere – Wyclef Jean partly lifts the veil in his song If I was president, in which he sings: “Instead of spending billions on the war / I can use that money / So I can feed the poor”.
 
The Fugees
Wyclef Jean was born in Haiti on 17 October 1972. His family moved to the United States when he was nine. After attending high school, he went to university but soon dropped out to focus on making music.
 
His musical breakthrough came with the band The Refugee Camp, better known as The Fugees. Their album The Score received a Grammy award for Best Rap Album. In the Netherlands The Fugees scored hits with their songs Ready or Not and Killing Me Softly (awarded a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance) which topped the charts for six consecutive weeks. So far, his solo career has not been quite as successful.
 
Yele Foundation
From mid 2005, Wyclef Jean began to focus on Haiti. That year, his uncle Raymond Joseph was appointed Haitian ambassador to the United States. Wyclef Jean founded the Yele Haiti Foundation, which raises money for the education of the poorest children in Haiti. The Yele Foundation came to the fore after two disastrous hurricanes which claimed many victims among the population.
 
The foundation only became really prominent after the 12 January earthquake in which tens of thousands of Haitians were killed. The capital Port-au-Prince was largely reduced to rubble. Even today, hundreds of thousands of people are still living in tent camps. In just a few days, Wyclef Jean and actor George Cloony organised the Hope for Haiti concert, broadcast worldwide by the MTV pop channel. More than 6.8 million euros has since been raised for the victims of the quake.
 
Corruption
However, there have been rumours of corruption. Early this year, reports surfaced in the media about rather generous payments to the aid organisation’s founders. The Yele Foundation allegedly paid more than 303,000 euros to Wyclef Jean and a friend of his. The amount was reportedly a reimbursement for the rental of office space and a 76,000 euro wage payment for Wyclef’s performance at the 2006 benefit concert. In addition, the Yele Foundation repeatedly either filed its tax forms late or not at all. Since 2006, the foundation has been dissolved and resurrected at least four times.
 
The pop star and aspiring politician has always denied the allegations. Earlier, he did offer his apologies for accepting payment for his performance at the 2006 benefit. He also immediately hired a different firm of accountants when fresh allegations of corruption were made after the earthquake earlier this year. After registering as a presidential candidate Wyclef Jean announced he would step down as chairman of the Yele Foundation 
 
Plans for the future
The brand-new presidential candidate says the earthquake was the main reason for him to return to his native country. In an interview with the US current affairs magazine TIME he said: "If I can't take five years out to serve my country as president then everything I've been singing about, like equal rights, doesn't mean anything."
 
For his sake, it is only to be hoped his career won’t end the way it did in his song If I was president: “I get elected on a Friday / Assassinated on Saturday / buried on Sunday / and they go back to work on Monday”. The Haitian presidential elections are scheduled to be held on 28 November.

• Yele Foundation
• Article from TIME magazine