Kon­bit Pou Ayiti — Work­ing Together for Haiti

Twenty years after its first demo­c­ra­tic elec­tions, Haiti is prepar­ing for a vote to fill all but one seat in its Cham­ber of Deputies and ten of its thirty Sen­ate seats. How­ever, as the elec­tion date of Feb­ru­ary 28 rapidly approaches, the United States and other donor coun­tries should with­hold fund­ing and observers from what is shap­ing up to be a selec­tion rather than an election.

Recent reports and state­ments about the elec­tions have focused on one key issue that is likely to under­mine the elec­tion: The Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Coun­cil (CEP), appointed by Pres­i­dent Rene Preval, has excluded fif­teen polit­i­cal par­ties from field­ing can­di­dates in the Feb­ru­ary con­test. How­ever, even if these par­ties are included in the elec­tion, the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of the major­ity of Haitians will still ren­der the results of the elec­tion invalid.

U.S. For­eign Pol­icy: Build­ing Plu­ral­ism in Haiti – Until Now

After two decades of work­ing to encour­age polit­i­cal plu­ral­ism in Haiti, includ­ing the dis­burse­ment of mil­lions of dol­lars to polit­i­cal par­ties labeled the “oppo­si­tion,” the U.S. has an oblig­a­tion to con­demn the CEP for exclud­ing fif­teen well-known polit­i­cal par­ties. Ten years ago the U.S. and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity boy­cotted elec­tions because oppo­si­tion par­ties them­selves chose to not par­tic­i­pate, accus­ing that CEP of being con­trolled by the Fanmi Lavalas party. Today some of these same par­ties are being inten­tion­ally excluded from par­tic­i­pat­ing, along side the Fanmi Lavalas party.

This glar­ing incon­sis­tency in U.S. pol­icy leaves the State Depart­ment open to accu­sa­tions of par­ti­san pol­i­tics and clear hos­til­ity towards the Fanmi Lavalas polit­i­cal party, still the most pop­u­lar polit­i­cal group in Port-au-Prince’s poor neigh­bor­hoods, while at the same time rais­ing ques­tions about the effi­cacy of mil­lions of dol­lars of aid fun­neled into the orga­ni­za­tion and the pro­mo­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties now being excluded from the ballot.

Over the last two decades of U.S. and United Nations inter­ven­tions in Haiti, a lot of speeches and state­ments have been made about build­ing Haiti’s nascent democ­racy. “Elec­tions alone don’t make democ­racy” has been a pop­u­lar catch phrase. Why are the U.S. and UN insis­tent on mov­ing for­ward with elec­tions so clearly doomed to fail? U.S. pol­icy in Haiti has focused on strength­en­ing “oppo­si­tion” par­ties to cre­ate a more plu­ral­is­tic gov­ern­ment. With­out insti­tu­tion build­ing, what good are dozens of polit­i­cal par­ties? With­out civic edu­ca­tion pro­grams, who will sup­port and vote for these politicians?

On the Ground In Haiti: An Excluded Population

In late Novem­ber, Pres­i­dent Preval announced the cre­ation of a new polit­i­cal party called Unity. Accord­ing to reports in the press, mem­bers of Preval’s for­mer party, the Lespwa Coali­tion, who did not join Unity were among those excluded from the bal­lot by the CEP. In addi­tion, some well-known lead­ers and cur­rent leg­is­la­tors con­verted to Unity when their own par­ties were not accepted by the Coun­cil. Can­di­dates from the social demo­c­ra­tic Fusion party, from Cha­vannes Jeune’s Union and from Mir­lene Manigat’s RDNP are among those who have switched to Unity. Even for­mer Fanmi Lavalas lead­ers from the two major met­ro­pol­i­tan areas – Cap-Haitien and Port-au-Prince – have become Unity can­di­dates, includ­ing Moise Jean-Charles of Milot and Saurel Fran­cois in Port-au-Prince (see Haiti Lib­erte, Decem­ber 2–8, 2009).

The CEP is a nine-member body and five of the cur­rent mem­bers were part of the Coun­cil in April 2009, the first time Fanmi Lavalas was excluded from the bal­lot. The CEP is being accused of par­ti­san bias, but a larger and more fun­da­men­tal prob­lem is the fact that the Coun­cil is still provisional. According to Arti­cle 192 of Haiti’s Con­sti­tu­tion, the Depart­men­tal Assem­blies nom­i­nate three indi­vid­u­als each, and the exec­u­tive, leg­is­la­ture and Supreme Court then chose the nine mem­bers of the Per­ma­nent Elec­toral Coun­cil from this pool. This is a mea­sure towards decen­tral­iza­tion because Depart­men­tal Assem­blies are cho­sen by rep­re­sen­ta­tives called ASECs, who them­selves are elected at the com­mu­nity level (seehttp://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_recent_news_11-30-09d.html for an expla­na­tion of the ASEC sys­tem). Accord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Per­ma­nent Elec­toral Coun­cil is an autonomous body that keeps the elec­toral machin­ery out of the hands of both the leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive branches of the government.

The inter­na­tional com­mu­nity should exert pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment of Haiti to finally cre­ate a proper Per­ma­nent Elec­toral Coun­cil before mov­ing for­ward with any elec­tions, espe­cially pres­i­den­tial elec­tions sched­uled for Novem­ber 2010.

The frag­ment­ing of polit­i­cal par­ties and will­ing­ness of can­di­dates and leg­is­la­tors to shift their loy­alty is also indica­tive of a larger prob­lem. Polit­i­cal par­ties in Haiti lack clear vision and mis­sion, they are often poorly orga­nized, and few have a true base of pop­u­lar sup­port. In the coun­try­side, national polit­i­cal par­ties may have name recog­ni­tion, but most local can­di­dates belong to regional polit­i­cal par­ties that are affil­i­ated with national parties.

Only twenty years after an astound­ing show of pop­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion in Haiti’s first demo­c­ra­tic elec­tion, the major­ity of Haitians are dis­con­nected if not indif­fer­ent when it comes to national elec­tions. Some hope remains that par­tic­i­pa­tion will come from the bot­tom up because Haitians con­tinue to be invested in elec­tions of local-level offi­cials with whom they have direct con­tact and a clearer sense of account­abil­ity. How­ever, the iso­la­tion of the rural pop­u­la­tion and most sec­ondary cities from the tumul­tuous par­ti­san pol­i­tics of Port-au-Prince and the lack of trickle down pol­icy from Haiti’s Par­lia­ment over the last fif­teen years has led to apa­thy towards the national leg­isla­tive race.

Dis­tor­tion of Reality

Polit­i­cal dis­course and activ­ity is cen­tral­ized in what is often referred to as “the Repub­lic of Port-au-Prince.” Main­stream reports give dis­pro­por­tion­ate voice to the urban pop­u­la­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the cap­i­tal. Even with more than two mil­lion inhab­i­tants, Port-au-Prince is not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the entire pop­u­la­tion of nearly ten mil­lion. The urban poor are mainly a tran­si­tional com­mu­nity of fam­i­lies forced to leave their homes in the coun­try­side. The grind­ing poverty and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion that led them to migrate to the city are the most endur­ing crises fac­ing Haiti today. As long as democ­racy remains a game for the few well-funded groups in the Repub­lic of Port-au-Prince, it is at the grass­roots level that truly sus­tain­able devel­op­ment strate­gies are being pur­sued, with­out the assis­tance or atten­tion of the inter­na­tional community.

A Fraud­u­lent Elec­tion will Fur­ther Alien­ate Voters

For the last two decades, the U.S. pol­icy towards Haiti’s democ­racy has been to focus fund­ing and sup­port on build­ing plu­ral­ism through oppo­si­tion polit­i­cal par­ties. In 2000, the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, led by the U.S., con­demned elec­tions because the oppo­si­tion felt the Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Coun­cil was biased and there­fore excluded them­selves from hav­ing can­di­dates on the bal­lot. Today the same par­ties are being inten­tion­ally excluded by another Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Coun­cil, and the only dif­fer­ence is that Fanmi Lavalas – the con­trol­ling power in the gov­ern­ment in 2000 – is now part of that oppo­si­tion, and the U.S. is mov­ing for­ward with plans to val­i­date and rec­og­nize the elections.

Haiti will always be remem­bered for unpar­al­leled pop­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion in its first demo­c­ra­tic elec­tions in 1990. That shin­ing moment rep­re­sented the self-determination of mil­lions of Haitians, but it only took eight months for the gov­ern­ment to be ousted and that dream deferred. In the peace­ful years since the restora­tion of democ­racy in 1994, pre­cious lit­tle atten­tion and fund­ing has gone towards build­ing the insti­tu­tions and pop­u­lar con­scious­ness nec­es­sary for a true demo­c­ra­tic move­ment. As a result, elec­tions in Feb­ru­ary 2010 will not only be fraud­u­lent because of polit­i­cal exclu­sion, but more impor­tantly, the alien­ation of the major­ity of Haitians from the demo­c­ra­tic process.

http://www.konpay.org/node/442