President Dumarsais Estimé

President: August 16, 1946 – May 10, 1950

On August 16, 1946, Dumarsais Estimé, a congressman, was elected president by the National Assembly. That date marked the return of black politicians to the presidency of Haiti. Color prejudice under the guise of anti-mulatto reaction prevailed. The terms noirisme and authentiques acquired new significance in the Haitian political vocabulary to mean that the darker citizens were the authentic Haitians and as such deserved to run the country.

After the presidential election, the National Assembly resumed its work on the new constitution. It was completed and the charter proclaimed on November 22, 1946.

A law passed on July 12, 1947, authorized a loan known as Libération financière, to pay up Haiti’s foreign debt. At long last, Haiti was in control of its finances and a Haitian board of directors was placed at the head of the Banque National.

Dominican-Haitian relations, which had been strained in the last months of the Lescot administration, became cordial once more, but not for long. Twice the Haitian government appealed to the O.A.S. to arbitrate.

A U.N. technical mission was sent to study the different measures to be recommended to improve the conditions of life in Haiti. The report of the commission was published in July 1959 in a 365-page book titled “Mission to Haiti”.

The Estimé administration gave special attention to the production of coffee, on of the main commodities for export. An Office National du Café was created, as well as a tobacco monopoly called Régie du Tabac. A project for irrigation was also conceived. The SHADA was nationalized and major contracts went to nationals. The export of bananas, which showed so much promise, dwindled away.

Dumarsais Estimé’s term in office is often celebrated as one during which social progress was accomplished by the people. Laws were passed for the protection of workers. Public lyceums opened in Petit-Goâve and Port-au-Prince.

The highlight of his administration was the 1949 international Exposition to commemorate the bicentennial of the foundation or port-au-prince. On December 8, 1949, the exposition was opened. The town of Belladère, on the Haitian-Dominican boarder, was transformed. New buildings were erected, and electricity and running water were supplied.

On July 1, 1949, a law for the revision of the Constitution was voted by the legislative chambers. Twenty-one articles plus the transitory dispositions dealing with the end of President Estimé’s term were targeted. The same maneuver so common to Haitian politics was at work again and the political atmosphere heated up again. A state of siege was decreed on November 14, 1949. A strike by university students was, according to the government, the work of the leftist parties spreading communist propaganda. Three of those parties were dissolved and their newspapers banned.

New elections held on January 10, 1950 brought to the Senate a majority of senators opposed to the constitutional revision. Thirteen of whom refused to join the chamber of deputies to revise the constitution. On May 8, a mob invaded the Senate. The president in a message to the Haitian people praised the action taken by the mob. Disapproving of a policy aimed at the dissolution of the Senate, the army deposed Dumarsais Estimé on May 10, 1950.

Article source: http://www.opamizik.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=1762&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20

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