1988, January 17 – February 7: (The Manigat Election: Hubert de Ronceray and Grégoire Eugène Collaborate with the CNG, Manigat the Fifty-Seven-Year-Old Intel…

1988, January 17 – February 7: (The Manigat Election: Hubert de Ronceray and Grégoire Eugène Collaborate with the CNG, Manigat the Fifty-Seven-Year-Old Intellectual Warns of Hothouse Politics, 5% Turnout by Independent Count vs. the CNG’s 35%, the Well-Upholstered Noir Intellectual Wins at 50.27%, Sworn In on February 7 Amidst a Sea of Uniforms and Medals, a 10% Salary Cut Greeted with Controlled Enthusiasm, Japan’s $16 Million in Kind Not Cash, and Foreign Donors Harden Their Hearts): Those willing to collaborate with the CNG included Hubert de Ronceray, once a minister under Jean-Claude Duvalier, Grégoire Eugène, and Leslie Manigat. Of the three, the fifty-seven-year-old Manigat stood out intellectually — author of numerous analyses of Haitian history written during more than two decades of exile under Duvalier rule, he harbored no illusions about the sharks with which he would be swimming. In a televised speech during the dying days of the old year, he condemned as hothouse politics the refusal of the so-called major candidates to work with the army, arguing that like it or not, the military was a force that would have to be reckoned with. After a day of very light turnout at the polls — independent observers estimated five percent of the electorate, while the CNG claimed thirty-five — the CNG-sponsored electoral council retired behind closed doors to count the ballots. To no one’s surprise the well-upholstered noir intellectual had won the election, the margin of 50.27 percent contrived with the precision of a poor forgery. Sworn in on February 7, 1988 — two years to the day after Jean-Claude Duvalier’s ousting — the new president seemed almost lost amidst the sea of uniforms and medals surrounding him. It took Manigat nearly two weeks to cobble together a government; at his first cabinet meeting, he was greeted with easily controlled enthusiasm after recommending a ten percent salary cut for all present and a consolidation of ministries. Those who hoped the Manigat presidency would open the valves of foreign aid were destined for disappointment — the donors from whom Haiti had received so much largesse hardened themselves against any approaches from the Manigat government. After two months of negotiation, Japan contributed some sixteen million dollars in aid, but in kind, not in cash — while the Japanese four-wheel-drive vehicles were sought after by those contending with Haiti’s deteriorating roads, the gift did nothing to solve the larger problems besetting the new administration. The Manigat election — a presidency born of five percent turnout and a contrived margin, inaugurated in the shadow of the same army that had slaughtered voters three months earlier — demonstrated that the parenthèse the 1987 constitution had sought to abolish remained the decisive instrument of Haitian politics: the officers had simply reclaimed the power to make presidents by replacing the ballot box they had destroyed on November 29 with a simulacrum whose only function was to drape a civilian face over military rule.