IT was just before Christmas when Michel Martelly mulled over events in his troubled land and concluded that everything had been done to ensure loss for him at the polls.

    An election rife with fraud had ousted him from the race. Martelly’s dreams of leading Haiti were all but dead. But four months of recounts and reviews and then a runoff changed everything, and the underdog candidate is poised now to move into the presidential office.

    Unexpected because Martelly has never been a politician.

    He’s better known as “Sweet Mickey,” a popular singer who enthralled his fans with his bad-boy antics on stage. He cursed and swayed with a bottle of Barbancourt rum in his hands and on occasion, mooned his audience.

    It’s an image that Martelly said he cultivated solely for the stage. Still, it led many to question whether he was fit to run a nation, especially one as beleaguered as Haiti.

    Already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is reeling from devastation caused by last year’s massive earthquake followed by a cholera epidemic later in the year.

    A perceived lack of progress prompted Haitians to vote against Jude Celestin, the government-backed candidate. Martelly, they said, was a fresh face in politics, untainted by the corruption that has marred many presidencies in Haiti.

    “To Haitians, particularly the legions of young and jobless, Martelly is an outsider who can bring change to Haiti,” longtime Haiti observer Jocelyn McCalla said on Twitter.

    Martelly’s victory falls in line with the signal the Haitian people have been sending for a while, said Garry Pierre-Pierre, editor and publisher of the New York-based newspaper The Haitian Times. “They don’t want the establishment. They don’t want the status quo,” he said.

    On the streets of Port-au-Prince, thousands turned out to chant one of his most popular nicknames: “Tet Kale,” which means bald head in Creole. Haitians, especially the youth, were starving for a fresh face.

    Martelly won by a landslide with 67.6 percent of the vote, soundly defeating his challenger, former first lady Mirlande Manigat, who received 31.5 percent.

    Pierre-Pierre called Martelly’s campaign impressive. He came out of nowhere and stunned established politicians with his strong showing in November.

    “This was a man who could move millions with a microphone,” Pierre-Pierre said.

    But at first, the election council said Martelly had placed third, behind Manigat and Celestin, meaning he was not eligible for a runoff.

    His supporters took to the streets, angry at what they said was a rigged election.

    Then came a review of the vote, monitored by the Organization of American States.

    The review resulted in Celestin’s removal from the ballot and placed Martelly in the runoff.

    “We are ruled by corruption,” Martelly once said during a review in December. “The people have no confidence in their government.”

    The lack of confidence was further eroded by a presidential election in disarray.

    “You know how (U.S. President Barack) Obama said it’s not about the man, it’s about the plan?” he said. “Here it’s more about the man than the plan.”

    Haiti will go nowhere, he said, unless the people have a president they can trust, a president who is honest. He was that man, he insisted.

    He said his background in music as well as social work — he founded an aid agency that helps the poor — gave him 22 years on the ground. The people know him, he said. He was their light at the end of the tunnel.

    But the man also had plans.

    He said, for instance, that the US$12 billion that was pledged by the international community for earthquake assistance should come in the form of infrastructure, not money, because Haitians don’t know how to manage money.

    “People are fed up here,” he said. “They have no food, no education, no health care.”

    Martelly exuded confidence that he could bring change to Haiti. But not everyone is so sure.

    “He’s stepping into not only a complicated moment in Haitian history but he is also stepping into the wasp’s nest of Haitian politics,” said Amy Wilentz, author of “The Rainy Season: Haiti Then and Now.”

    Wilentz said Martelly is a big unknown — a pro for voters perhaps but a con for those trying to measure up the next few years of Haitian history.

    “I don’t see any reason to believe or not to believe he will be good at it,” Wilentz said. “I think Haiti needs a fresh start. It needs to step out of the muck.”

    Some Haiti observers went further than that.

    Irwin Stotzky, a University of Miami lawyer who has studied human rights in Haiti, said Martelly lacked the credentials to run the country and did not see much hope for the immediate future.

    But criticism doesn’t deter Martelly. When asked in December whether a man who made a name dancing and singing had the mettle for his nation’s top job, he smiled.

    “Well,” he said. “Look at what the politicians have done.”

    The middle-class son of a petroleum plant supervisor, Martelly taught himself to play the piano by ear. After graduating from high school, Martelly was briefly enlisted in the Haitian Military Academy before dropping out after impregnating a General’s daughter.

    He emigrated to the United States with an American wife, where he enrolled at Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, Colorado. In 1986, after just one semester, he divorced and returned to Haiti.

    He returned stateside with his then-girlfriend, Sophia, and married her in Miami, Florida and had his first child, Olivier. Martelly worked on a construction site for a year until moving back to Haiti in 1987.

    Upon their return to Haiti, Martelly began playing keyboard as a fill-in musician in local venues.

    Martelly has been heralded as a pioneer of a unique brand of kompas music, a style of Haitian dance music sung in the vernacular Creole language.

    Martelly’s live performances and recordings are sometimes laced with “burlesque” and humorous sociopolitical commentaries and satires. Outlandish and outspoken, Martelly performed in wigs, costumes, and Scottish kilts, and occasionally removed his own attire while performing.

    While arguably the most recognized and applauded musician and public personality in Haiti, Martelly’s performance style has sometimes ignited controversy throughout Haitian communities.

    Martelly has recorded 14 studio albums and a number of live CDs over the past 20 years.

    He currently lives in Haiti, but held a home in Palm Beach, Florida for about a year. He lives with his wife and manager, Sophia, and their four children. (SD-Agencies)