Ready Or Not: Wyclef Jean On Why He’s Running For President Of Haiti

Wyclef Jean says he’s running to become the next president of Haiti with the goal of ending corruption in the Caribbean island nation – and he hopes his music superstar status won’t hurt his campaign.

“The suffering of the people of Haiti, the youth of Haiti – which is the majority of the population – can’t take another five years of the corruption that’s been going on for the past 200 years. This is why I’m running,” Wyclef told People.

The singer, who was born in Haiti and moved to New York when he was nine, said he meets the requirements in order to run, telling the mag he has lived in Haiti for five consecutive years, owns property there and has never been a citizen of another country.

”[My platform] has four pillars: education, job creation, instilling security into the culture, and, how do we get our agriculture back?” he explained, adding that he’s ready for his detractors. “Politics is a combat sport, so I expect nothing less than to be attacked everyday… [but the focus should be,] how [do] we help get the Haitian people out of this mess.”

The musician, whose next solo album, “Haitian Experience,” drops in December, acknowledges that his past career might be hard for some voters to get past.

“Automatically, when people first see me they’re going to say, ‘Isn’t that the guy from the Fugees?’ “Wyclef, who founded the charity Yéle Haiti in 2005, told the mag. “But I’m hoping that next they’ll say, ‘Okay. He knows what he’s talking about.’”