Leslie François Saint Roc Manigat (born August 16, 1930 in Port-au-Prince) was elected president of Haiti by a tightly controlled military held election in January 1988.

In education

Leslie Manigat is also an educator. He was a professor at the prestigious l'Université de Paris-VIII Vincennes where he gave courses on World History. He also published articles on education in various Haitian Newspapers: Le Nouvelliste, La Phalange, Le Matin.

1988 Haitian Presidential elections

According to the Provisional Electoral Council (Conseil Electoral Provisoire, or CEP) he won the presidential election of January 17, 1988 with 50.29% of the votes, defeating ten other candidates. However, voter turnout was well under 10%. Few historians and vote monitors consider this election to have been democratic. He was inaugurated on February 7, 1988, and named Martial Célestin as his Prime Minister in March. He was overthrown by Gen. Henri Namphy on June 20, 1988 in the June 1988 Haitian coup d'état. He ran for president again in the February 2006 election but was defeated, receiving 12.40% of the vote and placing a distant second behind René Préval.

Family

His wife Mirlande Manigat, was a candidate in the 2010 presidential election.[1]

Award

Leslie Manigat won The Haiti Grand Prize of literature 2004, given at the Miami Book Fair International of 2004. Nominees for the Prize were: Edwidge Danticat, René Depestre, Jean-Claude Fignolé, Odette Roy-Fombrun, Frankétienne, Gary Klang, Dany Laferrière and Josaphat-Robert Large.

Selected works

• Une date littéraire, un événement pédagogique - Essay, Port-au-Prince, 1962
• L'Amérique latine au XXe Siècle - History, Université de Paris I Sorbonne, 1973