Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Haitian politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ bɛʁtʁɑ̃ aʁistid]; born 15 July 1953) is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who served as president of Haiti in 1991, from 1994 to 1996, and from 2001 to 2004. He lived in exile between the 1991 military coup and 1994, and again between the 2004 coup and 2011. Aristide was a member of the Lavalas Political Organization before he founded the party Fanmi Lavalas in 1996.
Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies to become a priest of the Catholic Church. As a priest, he taught liberation theology and, as president, he attempted to normalize Afro-Creole culture, including Vodou religion, in Haiti. He became a focal point for the pro-democracy movement, first under Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and then under the military transition regime which followed. Aristide won the December 1990 presidential election, which was seen as the first free and fair election in Haitian history, with 67% of the vote, but was ousted just months later in the September 1991 military coup. His first presidency began political reforms and introduced a moderate economic program. Aristide went into exile because of the coup, and after negotiations with the military regime did not resolve the crisis, United States pressure and threat of force during Operation Uphold Democracy caused its removal.
During Aristide's return to power, he disbanded the Haitian military, which had a history of human rights abuses, and organized free elections during 1995.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jean-Bertrand Aristide” as haitian politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q209617. VIAF identifies the subject as 32199807. The Library of Congress control number is nr90007762. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1991, 1994 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jean-Bertrand Aristide” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.