Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide is leaving exile in South Africa in just a few hours, despite President Barack Obama’s bid to keep the hugely popular but controversial figure away from his homeland until it holds presidential election this weekend, officials said Thursday.

South African Cabinet Minister Collins Chabane said “they can’t hold him hostage,” noting Haiti’s government had delivered Aristide’s diplomatic passport last month.

The former slum priest was twice president of Haiti and remains wildly popular among the Caribbean nation’s majority poor. He was unable to serve full terms, having been ousted the first time in a coup before being restored to power in a U.S. military intervention in 1994. After handing power to his successor he was reelected years later, only to flee in 2004 aboard a U.S. plane as he was accused of killing opponents. Aristide claimed he was kidnapped by the United States, a charge the United States denied.

Obama was concerned enough about the timing of Aristide’s return to call South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday and discuss the matter, said U.S. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. He feared Aristide’s return could destabilize the elections, Vietor said.

Aides say Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, fears the winner might reverse the long-awaited decision to allow his return. In the past, both presidents have been opposed to Aristide. Now, both Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat stress his right to return as a Haitian citizen under the constitution.

Prominent lawyers and law professors criticized U.S. government “interference” in Aristide’s “constitutional and human right to return from forced exile to Haiti.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner acknowledged Aristide’s right to go back to Haiti, but said returning this week “can only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti’s elections.”

Thousands of people are expected to welcome Aristide home.

Aristide has said he will not be involved in politics in Haiti and wants to lead his foundation’s efforts to improve education in the impoverished nation devastated by last year’s catastrophic earthquake.

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