Quote Originally Posted by Andullero View Post
Not really, they had more or less a functional democracy (incredible as it sounds) and even had two black presidents before him (Dumarsais Estimé and Paul Magloire), it is just that he made the necessary populist political work building his powerbase in the countryside (he was one of those medics trained by the marines after all) and the peasantry were fond of him because of that. Part of that populist work was stirring up color hatred and politics again of course, which were a traditional staple of that country ever since independence.
Dumarsais Estimé was in the same party as Duvalier and Paul Magloire was a military officer that do a coup d'etat to Estime according to Papa Doc Rise of Evil Documentary