Fanmi Lavalas
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Fanmi Lavalas is a populist political party in Haiti. The former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is a member, and it also dominates parliament, with 73 out of 83 deputies, and 26 out of 27 senators.
It was formed in 1996 as a split by Aristide from the Lavalas Political Organization, the rump of which is now known as the Struggling People's Party. Two main reasons for the creation of Fanmi Lavalas are known: a) to allow the Lavalas movement to remain inclusive; b) to prevent OPL's opportunistic figures from taking over the movement's leadership from Aristide.
"Fanmi Lavalas" is awkwardly translated as "Avalanche Family" or "Waterfall Family" (referring to the Biblical flood) but the name is almost never completely translated from Haitian Creole, although it is sometimes given as "Lavalas Family".
Part of the Lavalas organization, and most of its supporters, went over to René Préval's Fwon Lespwa for the 2006 Haitian elections. Officially, Lavalas endorsed as its presidential candidate Marc Bazin, formerly a staunch opposer of Aristide.