Presidential candidate Charles Henry Baker held a meeting at the Caribe Convention Center last night, where he revealed his government action plan for the next five years if he is elected. He advocates a presidency that is competent and has national pride based on the restoration of order and discipline for the development of the country. Economist Pierre-Marie Boisson, who is in charge of the policy committee on Baker’s electoral campaign team, speaks as follows:
“Order and peace will be restored. It is unfortunate that it is not possible for us to listen to the song by the late Nemours Jean-Baptiste, the father of Haitian Konpa music, that says where there is order there is peace and when there is peace there is progress. This is something that Jean-Baptiste said about forty years ago. Jean-Baptiste was in fact a forerunner of Charles Henry Baker, just as order and peace are precursors of progress. It will be a society where social cohesion will be restored, where all social classes will come together because it is the duty of all of us to build a new Haiti. This society will be marked by mutual respect, not the kind of respect that can be seen today. Fiscal laws will be simplified, but effective. It will be a country where economic activities will be resumed and flourish. And, trust me, this is not something very difficult to achieve over a five-year period. It is a country where agriculture production will be relaunched and a country where factories will be multiplied. It is very difficult now to have factories in places like Port-au-Prince, Gonaives, Cap-Haitien, Les Cayes and so forth. There are absolutely no reasons why there should not be factories, agro-industrial factories and textile factories, in these areas. It is also a country where our beaches and historic places will be full of tourists. The year 2010 should be another election year that will mark the end of Baker’s five years in office through order, discipline and progress.”
As for presidential candidate Baker, it was an occasion for him to reassure his partisans and allies of his forthcoming victory. He urges the private sector to be vigilant to prevent the country from experiencing the same kinds of situations that it underwent under the Lavalas regime:
“As of February 7, 2006, Charlito (Baker’s nickname) will give the country a president who has self-respect and a president who respects his country. We lost a lot of our people on February 29, 2004. We have a lot of people who had been working hard for more than forty years and who then lost everything in just one night. They lost everything they ever achieved over the past forty years. They lost everything. Now we must be careful not to lose the rights and chances that these victims gave us on February 29, when they sacrificed their lives. There is no place for fear. We have got to take action. As we used to say during the GNB (anti-Aristide) movement, we will proceed step by step, and this time we will get to the plain of democracy with Charlito Baker as president of Haiti. We will not “swim to get out” (referring to remark by former Lavalas president Rene Preval about the victims of a boat accident). We will work hard to develop our country. The people of Raboteau in Gonaives have told me that it is not a Charlito campaign, but a Charlito movement. We are now revealing our vision for our possible government. This is no joke: 44 was last night’s first winning lottery number (44 is the number assigned to Baker for the elections). I do not usually buy lottery tickets, but I am in politics.