Ex-Haiti prime minister, presidential candidate Mar Bazin dies

Ex-Haiti prime minister, presidential candidate Mar Bazin dies BY JACQUELINE CHARLES jcharles@MiamiHerald.com Marc Bazin, former World Bank economist, one-time Haitian prime minister and unsuccessful presidential candidate, has died, family members confirmed. Bazin, 78, died early Wednesday after a lengthy illness. ``He was smart, had a great sense of humor and was one of the most undervalued citizens of Haiti,'' said Jocelyn McCalla, a former head of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights in New York who knew Bazin personally. Bazin ran a distant second to former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the December 1990 presidential election. He's a mentor and longtime friend of current Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, who most recently visited Bazin with President René Préval at his home above the mountains of Petionville. Bellerive is scheduled to meet with The Miami Herald's Editorial Board from 3:30 - 4:40 p.m. Wednesday. The gathering will be streamed live on MiamiHerald. com/Haiti. Bazin, a moderate, was among dozens of candidates who lost to Préval in the 2006 Haitian presidential elections. Even in failing health he worried about the future of the country, rebuilding education, the neglect of the middle class, the 1.5 million living in tent cities and the opposition's ongoing push to remove Préval from office. ``All of the guys have one preoccupation, how to get to power without an election,'' he told a Miami Herald reporter in one of his last interviews. Most recently, he was among several former prime ministers who came together to reflect and advise on the reconstruction of the country. ``What the country needs now is for us to go forward. Let's sit together; let's see what we can do,'' he said. Bazin first made a reputation for himself during a brief stint in the early 1980s as finance minister under Jean-Claude Duvalier. His attempts to crack down on corruption earned him the nickname ``Mr. Clean,'' but also got him dismissed after six months in office. In 1992, he was installed as defacto prime minister by the 7,000-strong military that forced Aristide into exile. He resigned in June 1993 after the military failed to support his attempt to fire four Cabinet ministers. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/16/1683623/ex-haiti-prime-minister-presidential.html#ixzz0r3uFbq2m