Wyclef Jean to run for President of Haiti

The hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean is expected to announce tomorrow that he will run for the presidency of Haiti in November's election. A spokeswoman for the Haitian-born New Yorker has refused to comment, but said 37-year-old Jean planned to make an announcement on Thursday night in Haiti.

Jean, whose family left Haiti for the States when he was nine, has played a major role in the efforts to restore order in Port-au-Prince since the devastating earthquake on January 12, in which an estimated 300,000 Haitians died.

This week, in an interview that appeared to seal his decision to stand for president, he told a Time reporter that he knew he would have to take the "next step".

The Time article suggests this was a biblical moment for Jean, who is the son of a Nazarene preacher (his fourth album, released in 2003, was called The Preacher's Son.) After helping ferry mangled corpses to the morgue, Jean said he felt as if he'd "finished the journey from my basket in the bulrushes to standing in front of the burning bush."

He added: "If not for the earthquake, I probably would have waited another 10 years before doing this. The quake drove home to me that Haiti can't wait another 10 years for us to bring it into the 21st century.

"If I can't take five years out to serve my country as President, then everything I've been singing about, like equal rights, doesn't mean anything."

If Jean does stand, his candidacy is expected to galvanise interest in the election among young Haitians: more than half the 9m population are aged under 25.

It will also put him in competition with one of his relatives - his uncle, Raymond Joseph, has resigned his post as Haiti's ambassador to the UN - and another Haitian musician who's announced his candidacy, Michel 'Sweet Micky' Martelly.

The presidency of Haiti is not going to be an easy ride, with thousands still destitute and officials feuding over the millions of dollars of aid - including money raised by the post-earthquake telethon organised by Jean and George Clooney.

His candidacy is also likely to prompt renewed questions about controversial payments made to Jean by his Yele Haiti charitable foundation, which surfaced in the wake of the Haiti disaster.

But Wyclef's younger brother, Samuel Jean, said yesterday: "It's not something that was taken lightly, it's not a joke, it's something very, very serious." ·