New sound of music?
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He'll also find that unlike South Sudanese who flocked back home by the millions to help build their new fuel-driven nation, Haiti's exiled millions will first remain camped in their greener pastures, waiting to see what he does and to hear his new sound of music before deciding whether to uproot and repatriate.
But perhaps President Martelly's most daunting task will be to manage the local political process in a country where politics has been as intractable as it could ever be anywhere.
Martelly will have to earn and keep the support of a legislature not fully in his hands or on his side. His Presidency will also play out in the presence of two controversial former Presidents who will not only fight each other, but are also likely to oppose him.
Ex-President Jean Bertrand Aristide, whose Lavalas party is the largest and most popular in Haiti but has been banned from the last two Presidential elections, returned from exile in South Africa between the end of the poll and the announcement of the result. Ex-dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who also returned from exile in France just before Aristide, is also resurrecting dormant old supporters of the two successive Duvalier dynastic presidencies.
In a nutshell, the popular Haitian entertainer-cum-president has his political tasks well cut out. His popularity will now no longer be based on his stage performances, but his performance as the new man in charge at the Presidential Palace.
As President, Martelly will discover, sooner than later, that he cannot simply sing Haiti's way out of its drastic political, economic and social morass. He'll learn, very quickly, that governance is not at all about singing and dancing, but about seeing and doing.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/node_7107878.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
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