Notice I am not dismissing what you way; there is just more to it than you have indicated.  For example, I think this is a good depiction:

Whatever the political differences between the Lavalas factions, Fatton writes, they were largely overshadowed by personal rivalries driven by what he terms la politique du ventre (the politics of the belly)--the struggle for the acquisition of personal wealth through the conquest and plundering of state offices. Fatton sees the FL-OPL split as the predictable consequence of the Haitian government's inability, in the face of an aid embargo and a stagnant economy, to continue supporting the growing class of new political claimants. By the winter of 1997, corruption in the Préval administration had become so blatant that at carnival in Port-au-Prince, the crowds, weary of partisan squabbling and disdainful of Haiti's politicians of all stripes, devoted much of the festivities to lampooning Lavalas bigwigs as grands mangeurs, or "big eaters," so named because of their propensity for lining up at the public trough.

The struggle for money and a foothold in the Haitian bourgeoisie is unquestionably one of the principal forces shaping Haiti's authoritarian politics. Moreover, as Fatton says, in the absence of economic growth, this pattern will replicate itself indefinitely. However, to maintain that in this instance the politique du ventre was the determining factor in the FL- OPL split would be to fail to reckon with Jean-Bertrand Aristide himself.

I don't think we disagree in general, just on the use of Aristideism. I defined it very clearly for this diary's purposes, but it nonetheless and reasonably carries connotations I didn't intend.

fairleft