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| Antonio Sola puts the finishing touches on his new product. |
Meet Michel Martelly, Haiti's first gay president:
Source: The Guardian & welcome2haiti
In the years following Aristide's restoration to power in 1994, Martelly became obsessed with hatred for the man. In a video from not too long ago, which can be seen on YouTube, the candidate threatens a patron in a bar where he has performed. "All those shits were Aristide's faggots," he says. "I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up your ass."
How did the belly-button flasher who'd like to "stick a dick up your ass" become president?
Source: McClatchy
Though Martelly attended Haiti's prestigious Saint-Louis de Gonzague, he proved to be a lackluster student. He enrolled at Red Rocks Community College in Colorado in 1984, and later at what was then known as Miami-Dade Community College, but dropped out.
Through late-night shows, Martelly became associated with a Haitian elite class openly indifferent to the suffering of the poor majority. That show of defiance was on display in the early 1990s. After military leaders toppled the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, Martelly stayed, running a club with his wife.
The new Michel Martelly, always neatly dressed in a dark suit, engages in the kind of keen strategy that gets him photographed alongside former President Clinton. Martelly hired a Spanish consulting firm with right-of-center ties to help put a polishing touch on the biggest performance of his life so far: winning the Haitian presidency.
That "right-of-center" Spanish consulting firm is 'Ostos Sola', lead by Antonio Sola:
Source: Inter Press Service
In Mexico, Antonio Sola from Spain, who has ties to Spain's rightwing opposition Popular Party, and Dick Morris of the U.S., ex-consultant to former President Bill Clinton (1993-2001), advised current president Felipe Calderon during the tense electoral campaign in 2006 that led to his victory.
Sola and Morris -- who in 1996 resigned from the Clinton reelection campaign after his own affair with a prostitute, who revealed private White House information, came to light -- have been identified as the people behind Calderon's smear campaign against his opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was the candidate of the leftwing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
Perhaps you'll recall his recycling of fascist era imagery in Spain & Mexico:
Source: Inter Press Service
The theme of the girl -- 'la nina' -- has triggered controversy. The Cuatro TV station reported that its origins can be traced back to Franco's granddaughter, Carmencita, whose grandparents voiced a similar phrase half a century ago. The station also pointed to similar words used by Mexico's current conservative President Felipe Calderon in a speech in a stadium in 2006, when he was a candidate.
According to the station, the 'coincidence' can be attributed to the fact that adviser Antonio Sola had worked for both Calderon and Guatemala's rightwing Patriotic Party & the Spanish PP candidate.
Maybe you saw one of his many spots in El Salvador, where Hugo Chavez apparently ran for president:
Source: Reforma
Sola llevó a las pantallas salvadoreñas las frases "Funes: un peligro para El Salvador" y, en referencia al candidato de Arena, Rodrigo Ávila, "el presidente del empleo". Las mismas que utilizó en el 2006 para denostar a Andrés Manuel López Obrador y promover a Felipe Calderón.
Los spots que advertían que el amigo favorito del candidato del FMLN era el presidente de Venezuela se convirtieron en los más numerosos. Según el coordinador de campaña de Funes, Roberto Lorenzana, al final de la campaña Chávez apareció más en la propaganda electoral que el candidato de Arena: de 6 mil 296 spots entre el 1o. de febrero y el 1o. de marzo pasado, 2 mil 852 fueron dedicados a Chávez y 2 mil 128 a Ávila.
Why is any of this important? Because Michel Martelly had his ideological opponents erased from the ballots - leaving only dusty musty Mirlande Manigat as his competition. Faced with virtually no challenge, his people kept the kids gloves on...taking the presidency with only 15% popular support.
They're saving all that dirty ammunition for the real campaign - which is just beginning.
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