Let's Celebrate François Leslie Manigat, the Man Who Wanted to Restore Haiti!

This August 16th, the memory of Leslie Manigat brings us together. A great statesman, immortal through his work, an eminent professor, and founder of the Rally of National Progressive Democrats (RDNP), he leaves Haiti a legacy that still inspires the fight for dignity and democracy. The 39th President of Haiti and the first of the post-Duvalier era to emerge from an election, albeit contested by the majority of political groups at the time, François Leslie Manigat, son of François Saint-Surin Manigat, a high school mathematics teacher, and Haydée Augustin, a schoolteacher, was born on August 16, 1930, in Port-au-Prince. A descendant of the old conservative elite of the North, Manigat, by entering politics, merely followed in the footsteps of some of his ancestors, including his grandfather, General Saint-Surin François Manigat. Indeed, the latter served under President Lysius Salomon (October 23, 1879 – August 10, 1888) successively as Minister of the Interior, delegate of the new National Bank of Haiti, and Minister of Public Instruction. At the turn of the 20th century, he was among those who harbored presidential ambitions. After his classical studies at Collège Saint-Louis de Gonzague, run by the Brothers of Christian Instruction (FIC), Leslie François Manigat continued his education at the Sorbonne, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy. His political career began in the 1950s at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Supporting François Duvalier's candidacy and ideology in 1957, he founded, in 1958 and at Duvalier's request, the School of Advanced International Studies, of which he was the first director. However, in the early 1960s, his relations with the president elected on September 22, 1957, deteriorated to such an extent that he was prosecuted by the government. Accused of supporting student strikes in the early 1960s, he was imprisoned for two months in 1963 before going into exile — first to the United States, then to France and Venezuela. Recognized for his solid knowledge of history and his expertise in international relations, he was invited to teach at several universities, including Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland (USA), the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, Yale University (for a brief period), and the University of Caracas, today named Universidad Central de Venezuela. In exile, he sided with the opposition and became a fierce activist in the 1970s; an activism that led him to found, in 1979, in Venezuela, the Rally of National Progressive Democrats (RDNP). With the fall of the hereditary Duvalier dictatorship on February 7, 1986, Leslie François Manigat, like many compatriots who had been active in the external opposition, returned to the country with the desire to contribute to the nascent democratic process. Under his party's banner, he ran for president in the election scheduled for November 29, 1987. When the CNG, citing acts of violence and the killing that occurred in a polling station, canceled the elections and dared to dissolve the CEP, Manigat refused to openly criticize the National Council of Government, even implying that the CEP bore some responsibility for the fiasco. Stating that the army was indispensable and that it should be taken at its word when it declared itself capable of organizing free and fair elections, he therefore ran in the January 17 elections, organized by the army, and thus became President of Haiti on February 7, 1988. His accession, disapproved by a Haitian political class unable to grasp him and deemed indigestible by an international community that opposed him, took place with relative indifference. Yet, many compatriots, adopting the attitude of attentive observers, hoped for intrepid action from him, proving, if not his legitimacy, at least his independence. During the four months he held power, he strived to show that he could be the man through whom Haiti's redemption would come. However, for several years now, the country has been mired in a circular transition where the same faces return, disappear, then reappear, perpetuating the exercise of power through violence — violence nevertheless tolerated by the international community. Elections are no longer the central element leading to democracy. Faced with a political class on the verge of decline and an international community that now controls a country plunged into deep chaos, Haitians must finally ask themselves questions. Meanwhile, the fight against competence, integrity, quality, and excellence continues. Leslie Manigat was an experiment to be attempted and replicated. He was largely right about everything. But in politics, one can be right and lose. The fight, however, continues. And history, one day, will judge the true scope of his legacy. Sonet Saint-Louis, Esq.
Professor of Constitutional Law and Methodology at the Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences of the State University of Haiti.
Sous les bambous,
sonet.saintlouis@gmail.com