Hériveaux and his clique, “[w]ith the prospect of
senate elections looming,” were particularly worried about
the contest for the North’s Senate seat between Nahoum
Marcellus, who was part of Hériveaux’s current, and Moïse
Jean-Charles, who led a radical Lavalas current although he
ran under the banner of Préval’s Lespwa political coalition.Because of this fight in particular, “Hériveaux
underscored that FL leadership has to maintain popular
support among grass roots members,” Sanderson wrote.
She erroneously concluded that Hériveaux and his branch
of the “FL appears to be preaching the right doctrine to
politically position itself for dominance.”
However, the “right doctrine” did not work, and the
Haitian masses were not duped by the posturing of Hériveaux
and his group. Moïse Jean-Charles handily trounced Nahoum
Marcellus in the 2009 Senate race. Marcellus, like Hériveaux,
went on to become an ally of President Michel Martelly. Sen.
Moïse Jean-Charles has become one of the most prominent
leaders of the current nationwide uprising denouncing
Martelly’s corruption and demanding his resignation.
Although she saw Hériveaux’s clique as “educated and
politically savvy,” Sanderson recognized that they had
“ideological differences” with FL’s “grass roots partisans”
and that this would “remain an impediment to restructuring”
the party under Hériveaux’s leadership.
Hériveaux’s treachery in the 2009 election controversy
The U.S. Embassy cables trace how in early 2009, Dr.
Maryse Narcisse’s FL Executive Committee briefly entered
into an alliance with Hériveaux in an internal FL dispute
prior to April 2009 parliamentary elections. Narcisse and
Hériveaux proposed one list of candidates while another
“moderate” faction, led by former Aristide Prime Minister
Yvon Neptune and former Chamber of Deputies President Yves
Cristalin, proposed another.
In a Jan. 30, 2009 cable, Sanderson told Washington that
the FL Executive Committee’s “relative organizational and
popular strength” gave the Narcisse/Hériveaux alliance an
“advantage in the dispute” with the Neptune/Cristalin group.
But on Feb. 3, 2009, two days before the official
announcement, Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP)
President Frantz Verret and Director Pierre-Louis Opont told
the embassy that the CEP had “decided to exclude all Fanmi
Lavalas candidates from the upcoming Senate elections, based
on a what Embassy and others believe is a strained reading
of the electoral law, and the fact that two FL factions
submitted competing candidate lists,” Deputy Chief of
Mission Thomas Tighe wrote in a
Feb. 4, 2009 cable.
The CEP officials told the U.S. embassy that “since none
of the FL candidates' registration documents bears the
authorization of party leader Jean Bertrand Aristide,
Haiti's electoral law dictates their exclusion,” Tighe wrote.
After the ruling, Narcisse “submitted to the CEP on
February 9 a mandate purportedly signed by Aristide
authorizing her to designate FL candidates for elections, as
well as to assume other authorities of the party leader,”
Ambassador Sanderson wrote in a
Feb. 11, 2009 cable.
“The document, dated April 27, 2004 in Jamaica and typed in
French, is Narcisse's response to CEP officials...”
Here is where Hériveaux politically stabbed Narcisse in
the back, the cables show. The same day, Hériveaux “told the
press February 9 that he was surprised by the existence of
this document [i.e. Aristide’s signed letter],” thereby
ending his “uneasy alliance with Narcisse since November
2008,” according to Sanderson. Already Hériveaux had
“privately signaled [to the U.S. embassy] his willingness to
talk with Cristalin” and his “moderate” faction, which
claimed Narcisse’s “document is not authentic” but “was
created by superimposing the text on a photocopy of
Aristide's signature.”
Cristalin and the “moderates then submitted their own
list of candidates to the CEP that was identical, but for one name,” to Narcisse’s
list. This managed “to bring Senator
Rudy Hériveaux and Deputy Sorel Francois over to their
camp,” Sanderson explained in a
Feb. 17, 2009 cable,
but “lacking the Aristide endorsement that the CEP had
demanded, the new list was also rejected out of hand.”
The conflict between Narcisse and Cristalin/Neptune
factions continued for some time after FL’s disqualification
in February 2009, but Hériveaux, “who has made overtures to
both sides in recent months, remains isolated from both
groups,” Sanderson explained in a
May 29, 2009 cable
which relates a May 4, 2009 meeting between the U.S.
Embassy’s political counselor and Dr. Narcisse. “While
Narcisse seemed to hold open the possibility of compromise
with FL moderates such as Neptune and Cristalin, she
dismissed Senator Rudy Hériveaux as in no way authorized to
speak for or lead FL. Narcisse claimed that the electoral
authority had offered to accept the Lavalas Senate slate if
Narcisse and Hériveaux jointly endorsed the party list, but
she had refused to sign, because to do so would have implied
recognition of Hériveaux as a Lavalas representative.”
Hériveaux and his former allies today
Hériveaux and his “moderates” were never successful in
taking over the FL during Aristide’s exile in South Africa,
but ironically, since Aristide’s return to Haiti on Mar. 18,
2011, at least one of them has managed to find a key role in
the party.
Former Sen. Louis Gérard Gilles, who was one of
Hériveaux’s closest allies, now sits on the Narcisse-led FL
Executive Committee with Aristide’s benediction.
Nevertheless, Gilles is distrusted by the Lavalas base for
today advocating negotiations with President Martelly, who
is barely clinging to power in the face of almost daily
demonstrations demanding his resignation.
Former Deputy Jonas Coffy, another Hériveaux
collaborator, became the leader of the Haitians for Haiti,
founded by former prime minister Yvon Neptune. Phélito
Doran, another Haitians for Haiti leader, is Martelly’s
Minister for Liaison with the Parliament. Nonetheless, in
October 2014, Coffy’s party joined the launching of the
Platform of Dessalines Children (PPD), which has been
calling for Martelly’s resignation. Eventually, the
contradictory positions of Haitians for Haiti caught up to
Coffy when he, like Gilles, advocated negotiations with
Martelly, and the PPD expelled him.
Nonetheless, Hériveaux, as Martelly’s Communications
Minister, remains the most reviled of the “Lavalas
moderates.” Today, he is the butt of popular jokes and scorn
for calling anti-government protestors “cockroaches.” The
secret U.S. diplomatic cables, given by WikiLeaks to
Haïti Liberté, paint the portrait of a consummate
opportunist, who, as U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten observed
in a
Nov. 10, 2009 cable,
never enjoyed as a political leader either “formal authority
or grassroots support.”
