Fwon Lespwa was a
Haiti
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
an political coalition headed by
René Préval, who served as president from 1996 to 2001 and from 2006 to 2011. The name ''Lespwa'' is the
Haitian Creole
Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...
form of the French ''l'espoir'', meaning "hope". The coalition's full
French name is ''Front de l'Espoir'' (Hope Front). Lespwa included many members and former members of the last government of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his
Fanmi Lavalas (Flood Family).
USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the United States government that has been responsible for administering civilian United States foreign aid, foreign aid and development assistance.
Established in 19 ...
and the
IRI attempted to form a rump Lavalas organization with
Marc Bazin, but Aristide along with nearly all of Fanmi Lavalas refused to recognize Bazin's candidacy. While publicly boycotting the elections, Lavalas overwhelmingly supported the election of René Préval, which it saw as a return to peace and democracy.
In the
February 2006 presidential election, Préval was the Lespwa candidate. With 90% of the vote counted by February 13, he was leading with 49% of the vote. On February 16, 2006, Préval was declared the winner with 51.21% of the vote, once a number of uncounted voters were tabulated. Supporters of Lespwa found a massive dump of burned charred voting cards marked for Preval. A massive persecution upon supporters of the ousted Aristide government by the illegal interim government of
Gerard Latortue preceded the 2006 election cycle. The party won 18.9% of the popular vote in the 7 February 2006 Senate
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...
with 13 out of 30 Senators and 23 out of 99 deputies in the
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...
. Lespwa's parliamentary caucus formed part of the governing coalition under
Jacques-Édouard Alexis,
''South Florida Sun-Sentinel.''
/ref> but soon formed a political alliance, the Coalition of Progressive Parliamentarians, that filed a motion of no confidence in Alexis' government during the 2008 food crisis. It has since rejected two of Préval's nominees for prime minister; through the electoral alliance, Lespwa's leaders have gained a majority in the Chamber.
Lespwa was disbanded in November 2009 in favor of Unity (''Inite''), the successor party of many pro-Préval supporters, including factions from other parties.
References
External links
Préval Shoo-in for Haiti President
Préval declared winner in Haiti
Defunct political parties in Haiti
Defunct political party alliances
Democratic socialist parties in North America
Haitian nationalism
Left-wing nationalist parties
Political party alliances in Haiti
Socialism in Haiti
Political parties disestablished in 2009
{{Haiti-party-stub