Savannah Savary, a 61-year-old businesswoman, writer and cultural advocate, says she intends to run for president of Haiti and is in talks with a political coalition to register her candidacy before the October 31 deadline.

“I will never compromise on Haiti's sovereignty and the integrity of its people,” Savary told the Haitian Times in an interview on October 16. She says her priorities would be freeing the country from gangs, returning institutions to public service, rebuilding Haiti's productive capacity and uniting Haitians at home and in the diaspora around a common project.

Born in Port-au-Prince to a Haitian father and a mother of Lebanese descent, Savary is the daughter of Philippe Savary, a senator elected in 1946. She studied at the Faculty of Law and Economics of the State University of Haiti.

She inherited two sugarcane businesses: Distillerie 1928, a mill in Saint-Michel-de-l'Attalaye that produces rum, kleren and cane syrup, and Habitation Robert, a plantation in the Cul-de-Sac Plain. Together they employ more than 100 people, she said.

Savary has written more than 300 articles for Le Nouvelliste and Le National, hosts the programs “Kan Pèp La” and “Ayiti Leve Kanpe,” and leads the Savary Foundation for Haiti, which she says supports rural women. She has spoken openly about her embrace of Vodou.

If registered and approved, she would join a field dominated by men, including former President Michel Martelly.