By Jacque­line Charles and Tren­ton Daniel, Miami Herald

As Haiti’s elec­toral body reviews the appli­ca­tions of 34 pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls, much remains unanswered.

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The sur­prise deci­sion came a day before the Sat­ur­day dead­line, 1 ½ hours before mid­night and after weeks of round-the-clock meet­ings, polit­i­cal bick­er­ing and consultations.

Two-time prime min­is­ter and assumed heir-apparent to the Hait­ian pres­i­dency Jacques-Edouard Alexis would not be Pres­i­dent René Préval’s pick to suc­ceed him. Instead, Pré­val was tap­ping Swiss-educated mechan­i­cal engi­neer and head of the government’s road build­ing out­fit, Jude Célestin, to rep­re­sent his INITE (Unity) plat­form. His nom­i­na­tion blocked by sen­a­tors, Alexis quit the plat­form and filed with another party.

“Jacques-Edouard Alexis is a polit­i­cal leader who made his choice,” said Hait­ian Sen. Joseph Lam­bert, the national coor­di­na­tor for INITE, as he offi­cially declared Célestin, 48, the platform’s pres­i­den­tial choice. “We have made a choice who is a uni­fier, a mobi­lizer, who responds to not just the major­ity of the peo­ple in INITE but some­one who calms down the sit­u­a­tion… a heavy weight.”

As Haiti’s Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Coun­cil (CEP) begins the process of review­ing the paper­work of 34 pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls, includ­ing Haiti-born Hip Hop star Wyclef Jean, there is uncer­tainty and ten­sion about which can­di­dates will make the final list to be released Aug. 17. The pres­i­den­tial race has attracted a wide spec­trum of can­di­dates, includ­ing at least seven self-declared, and unde­clared can­di­dates from for­mer Pres­i­dent Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas polit­i­cal party.

But while some in the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity are opti­mistic of the increas­ing momen­tum, oth­ers are wait­ing to see if the expected polit­i­cal fall­out from the elec­toral body’s deci­sion on the can­di­dates’ qual­i­fi­ca­tions will plunge an already quake-ravaged Haiti into vio­lence or gov­ern­men­tal crisis.

“This is a very volatile sit­u­a­tion. The eas­i­est thing they can say is ‘You are all can­di­dates.’ But I don’t know if they will do that,” said Robert Fat­ton, a Haiti-born polit­i­cal expert at the Uni­ver­sity of Vir­ginia. “It’s going to be fas­ci­nat­ing to see how many are in the race after Aug. 17.”

Should it accept all or most of the can­di­dates includ­ing Jean, for­mer prime min­is­ters Alexis and Yvon Nep­tune, and Leslie Voltaire, an urban plan­ner and for­mer Aris­tide cab­i­net mem­ber, it will make for a com­pli­cated race where any­one can end up the winner.

At issue are the seven con­sti­tu­tional require­ments one must meet to run for pres­i­dent of Haiti, and how the CEP will decide who among the hope­fuls meet them. Will it lean on the side of a legal inter­pre­ta­tion, or polit­i­cal influ­ence in its decision-making as it deter­mines the fate of some of the most high-profile can­di­dates, sev­eral of whom face legal ques­tions about their qual­i­fi­ca­tions to run?

“Any deci­sion they take car­ries risk,” said Mon­fer­rier Dor­val, a law pro­fes­sor at the State Uni­ver­sity of Haiti.

Even before the cal­en­dar was pub­lished for November’s pres­i­den­tial and leg­isla­tive elec­tions, the CEP faced strong crit­i­cism over its abil­ity to carry out the tasks in a coun­try where the quake dis­placed 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple and elec­toral cards are under the rubble.

Mem­bers of the oppo­si­tion and a pow­er­ful U.S. Repub­li­can law­maker all demanded its over­haul. Pré­val ignored the demands. Then last week, mem­bers of his own coali­tion cried foul after the coun­cil issued a con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion open­ing the door for Alexis and three other for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to enter the race.

The body ruled that because Haiti cur­rently has no func­tion­ing par­lia­ment, it would allow the for­mer min­is­ters to file if they pro­vide a favor­able report from the government’s account­ing office stat­ing they had not mis­used state funds. The deci­sion imme­di­ately set off protests.

On Mon­day, the CEP’s eight sit­ting mem­bers reit­er­ated their posi­tion . Ear­lier in the day, Alexis pre­sented reporters with copies of a 2009 let­ter he sub­mit­ted to par­lia­ment seek­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­ally required clear­ance to run.

“Nobody can use this aspect of the dis­charge as an obsta­cle,” said Alexis, who was sacked in 2008 by the Hait­ian sen­a­tors fol­low­ing food riots. But even if he man­ages to qual­ify on the dis­charge issue, Alexis risks pos­si­ble dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion due to his party, Mobi­liza­tion for the Progress of Haiti.

MPH was founded by Samir Mourra, a Hait­ian Amer­i­can, who has opposed every admin­is­tra­tion Alexis served in and who was barred from run­ning for pres­i­dent in 2006 because he held U.S. cit­i­zen­ship. Observers point out that Hait­ian law for­bids non-Haitian cit­i­zens from prac­tic­ing pol­i­tics in the country.

“He’s com­mit­ting polit­i­cal sui­cide,” Fat­ton said of Alexis.“It looks like a des­per­ate attempt to get into the race.”

Alexis defended his choice of MPH, say­ing, “If they say I’m not eli­gi­ble, that’s because they are scared of me.”

Alexis con­ceded that his chances of ris­ing to the pres­i­dency would be greater if he were indeed INITE’s can­di­date. But he added that he enjoys more free­dom now.

“Jacques-Edouard Alexis doesn’t nego­ti­ate. Jacques-Edouard Alexis is not flex­i­ble, Jacques-Edouard Alexis is too rigid. If they say this in a good sense, it’s a com­pli­ment,” he said.

Aside from Alexis, the CEP also holds the fate of sev­eral other high-profile can­di­dates as it deter­mines whether they meet the res­i­dency require­ment. Among them are sometime-South Florida res­i­dents Jean, konpa star Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly and Miami activist Lavarice Gaudin. All have pointed to their Hait­ian pass­ports as proof they do not hold dual nation­al­ity. But their pos­ses­sion of a U.S. green card also raises legal ques­tions about whether they meet the require­ment of con­sec­u­tive five years of res­i­dency in Haiti.

The five-year require­ment has always been inter­preted to mean five years of res­i­dency prior to elec­tion. “Legally, you can­not reside in both coun­tries. Legally, they can­not com­pete,” Fat­ton said. “They have to make up their minds: Are we going to be legal­is­tic and elim­i­nate seven to eight can­di­dates, or be political?

“This is a real mess,” he said. “It’s dif­fi­cult to know what will hap­pen until we have the offi­cial list of candidates.”

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