2011-05-14: (Michel Martelly Inaugurated as President, a Compas Musician Known as Sweet Micky Who Had Welcomed Aristide’s Overthrow, the Post-Earthquake Repu…

2011-05-14: (Michel Martelly Inaugurated as President, a Compas Musician Known as Sweet Micky Who Had Welcomed Aristide’s Overthrow, the Post-Earthquake Republic Choosing a Performer Over a Professor): On May 14, 2011, Michel Martelly was inaugurated as president of Haiti. Born on February 12, 1961, into a middle-class mulatto family in Port-au-Prince, Martelly was a self-taught pianist who had become one of Haiti’s most popular compas musicians under the stage name Sweet Micky, known for outlandish performances and Kreyòl lyrics. He had welcomed Aristide’s 2004 overthrow. In the November 2010 elections, delayed by the earthquake, Martelly finished third behind Mirlande Manigat and Jude Célestin. Célestin was disqualified in February 2011 and replaced on the ballot by Martelly, who won the runoff with sixty-seven percent of the vote. Préval turned over power peacefully, marking the second peaceful transfer of executive authority between elected presidents. Martelly promised to reinstate the army, relocate earthquake refugees, and rebuild. The musician was now the president of a nation that needed everything rebuilt: its capital, its institutions, its infrastructure, and its faith that governance could serve the governed.