The 2011 Haitian presidential election of was full of surprises. Grammy Award-winning artist Pras Michel had convinced his good friend and well-known Haitian singer Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly to run for office, then he heard that another famous Haitian musician had thrown his hat into the ring — his former Fugees bandmate Wyclef Jean.

“That was a bombshell,” he told host Roy Sekoff during Friday’s episode of “The HuffPost Show.”

While Jean’s camp had millions in his campaign fund, Sweet Mickey was getting by with much less, Michel explained.

“He’s the biggest Haitian international superstar, so he came in and we were the little train that could,” Michel said. “Wyclef came in with $20 million just to register. We had just $17,000.”

Michel said the competition from Jean gave Martelly an unexpected boost in the race. Once news outlets heard that Michel and Jean were on competing campaigns, the press coverage started flowing in.

“Actually, he helped us because his weight was so huge. Then everyone made it ‘ex-bandmate not supporting Wyclef,’ which helped Michel Martelly get some international coverage,” he said.

In the end, Martelly beat the odds, winning the election in a landslide vote after Jean was disqualified from the race — though no official reason was made public, press speculated it was because he had not met the residency requirement for the role.

Michel’s new documentary “Sweet Micky for President,” which chronicles Martelly’s road to victory, is slated to be screened at the L.A. Film Festival this year.

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