For Immediate Release: October 17, 2011
Contact: Dan Beeton, 202–239-1460

Washington, D.C.- An Organization of American States (OAS) Mission overturned the results of the first round of Haiti’s presidential elections last year, despite that it had no statistical evidence to do so, a new Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) paper finds.

“The OAS’ actions in taking the unprecedented step of overturning an election, without a recount or evidence for its action, casts serious doubt on the institution’s credibility as an independent, neutral arbitrator or election observer,” CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said. “It’s difficult to see this as anything other than a political intervention.”

Weisbrot added: “Any government considering having the OAS involved in their election in any way should reconsider until the organization has conducted an investigation of their abuses in Haiti, and taken steps to make sure that this can’t happen again.”

Weisbrot noted that the purpose of the CEPR paper was not to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Haiti’s government, nor to provide evidence as to who should have been elected president.  Rather, the purpose was to investigate whether the OAS had any statistical or empirical basis for its unprecedented action in reversing the election results.

The paper, “The Organization of American States in Haiti:  Election Monitoring or Political Intervention?” by David Rosnick, shows that the OAS’ prescribed methodology of discarding “suspect” vote tally sheets would not be expected to move the vote count closer to the intent of the voters. After throwing out a number of vote tally sheets, the results of the first round of the election were reversed, with Michel Martelly (now president) taking second place, and Jude Célestin pushed into third, and thereby eliminated from the second round runoff election. The United States government subsequently put enormous pressure on the government of Haiti to accept the elimination of the government’s candidate (Célestin). Recently revealed Wikileaks cables show that Washington had turned against the government of Haiti for political reasons.

“The point is not that the OAS and CEP [Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council] ought to have incorporated imputations into the official count, but that they did in fact impute zeros for these sheets,” the paper states.

By means of a thorough statistical analysis of all of the tally sheets from the first round of elections, the author was able to model hundreds of possible scenarios based on imputations for the missing and excluded data. The results showed that Célestin, not Martelly, was by far the most likely second place finisher in the first round.

The OAS Mission, the paper notes, only examined a portion of the total tally sheets, and the tally sheets it chose to discard were from disproportionately pro-Célestin areas. The OAS did not use any statistical inference to in order to estimate what the result might have been had they examined the other 92 percent of tally sheets that they did not examine. Nor did the OAS attempt to account for the impact of more than 150,000 missing or excluded votes, nearly 12 percent of the total.

The paper concludes that the OAS Mission “considered four approaches to remedy the high rate of irregularities in the tally sheets.  Of these, three— voiding the entire election, conducting a revote in selected problem areas, or conducting a nationwide recount—would have at least addressed that question.  It is most unfortunate that the OAS chose to simply throw out selected ballots for technical reasons.”

“It is absurd for the OAS to then reverse the results of the first round of the election, or to support any results,” the paper states in its conclusion.

The election was also marred by the exclusion of the country’s most popular political party, and a record low turnout in both rounds (less than 24 percent participation in the first round).

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Read CEPR Paper: http://ijdh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/haiti-oas-2011–10.pdf

I love the dude’s music,” says one of my Haitian friends, “but do you realize that he is the R. Kelly of Haiti?”

Yes, that would be Michel Martelly, aka “Sweet Micky,” the front runner in the Haitian elections a mere 20 days away. A search of Martelly on Google reveals Sweet Mickey singles, his recent loan defaults on more than $1 million in South Florida properties, and his friendship with Wyclef Jean. Notably absent are his plans to build a functioning government in Haiti or a dearth of political experience.

Putting his bad boy ‘90s kompa image and famous pants dropping routine aside, Martelly may have a more sinister past than his music videos convey. Sources speculate that Martelly maintained a close affiliation with the reactionary “forces of darkness” that sponsored bloody coups d’état and military rule. In 2002, the Washington Post described “Sweet Micky” as a “favorite of the thugs who worked on behalf of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship before its 1986 collapse,” and the singer was always extremely outspoken in his disdain for former president Aristide and the Lavalas family party.

Conversations with human rights organizations on the ground in Port-au-Prince confirm Martelly’s Duvalier ties. As a refresher, “Baby Doc” and “Papa Doc” Duvalier, are most famous for their reign of terror against any opponents, disappearances, and their armed militia, Les Tonton Macoutes who often stoned and burned people alive. Many times the corpses were put on display, often hung in trees for everyone to see, and family members who tried to remove the bodies for proper burial often disappeared themselves.Charges for fraud and embezzlement were filed against Jean-Claude Duvalier last month days after he returned to Haiti for the first time since he was exiled to France in 1986.

The elections on Haiti have been riddled with corruption from the beginning, starting with the exclusion of Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas. Uncertainty over what to do with the preliminary results of the November election culminated in Hillary Clinton’s personal visit to ensure that President Préval backed away from his hand-picked successor, Jude Célestin for the run-off elections. (The U.S. threatened to withhold billions of dollars in international assistance if Préval did not comply). On January 30, Hillary Clinton flew to Haiti to meet with Préval and emphasized that the U.S. has “made it very clear we support the OAS recommendations”–the ones that favor Martelly over Célestin, in other words — “and we would like to see those acted on.”

Over a year after the earthquake, and almost a century after political instability and extreme poverty, the most popular words surrounding Haiti continue to be the latest celebrity visit (ahem, Charlie Sheen), orphanage rebuilding or strings-attached aid packages. Yet, Haiti is a country that is at a point where it can continue its political tradition of massive corruption and manipulation by foreign governments, or it is a time where it can focus on a grassroots democratic movement and institutional capacity building.

Quite simply, why aren’t we outraged that the United States and the OAS pushed for the adoption of election results that many well-respected human rights organizations and policy experts have deemed fraudulent? Why was it preposterous that Wyclef Jean wanted the presidential bid, but Sweet Micky Martelly’s candidacy doesn’t seem to be ruffling too many feathers in the United States?

Is Haiti our pet aid project, rich with corporate branding opportunities and self-aggrandizing celebrity trips?

It is no secret that Haiti has always been a strategic point of interest for the United States, and that the US government has every interest in maintaining stability and its heavy-handed influence in the region. But as social media mavens, educated activists and social entrepreneur enthusiasts, shouldn’t we at least be talking about the election? Don’t get me wrong. Haiti needs our attention, our ideas and (maybe) even some of our financial assistance. What it needs most, however, is a functioning government — one that will nurture the private market and ensure civil liberties. We should not be shrugging off the Haitian elections, as doomed to fail or as irrelevant (or simply less sexy than the latest Charlie Sheen visit), because they are crucial for long-term development.

“There is simply no replacement for a strong, independent government that is accountable to its people,” explains Institute for Justice and Democracy for Haiti staff attorney Nicole Philips, “we talk about entrepreneurship, economic development and human rights,” but none of these things can happen in a sustainable manner without fair and inclusive elections.”

With the elections approaching on March 21, let’s start talking about something that really matters — the future of a country and a vibrant, rich culture on the brink of a new beginning.

For more on the OAS’s recommendations and election results that were declared flawed and statistically unsound by several leading Haiti NGOs, please see the Joint Report of Independent Electoral Monitors of Haiti’s November 28, 2010 Election.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-skibola/post_1816_b_833953.html

Communications Director: Stephanie L. Young o:202.226.5312 c:202.731.2621

Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on Foreign Policy and International Affairs

Statement on Haiti Elections & OAS Report

Washington, DC – Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, II and Hon. Donald M. Payne, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on Foreign Policy and International Affairs, released the following statement in response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support of OAS report:

“The Congressional Black Caucus cannot overlook the serious concerns that the recent elections in Haiti have posed to its overall democracy. The CBC urges the United States and the international community to uphold the ideals of fairness and support a new Haiti election process that is free and fair, respecting the rights of the Haitian people.

We are not blind to the complexity of this issue, as well as the need for a functional Haitian government. Our Members have experienced first-hand the denial of voting rights, voter intimidation, and other acts of voter discrimination. No entity can truly report on the “will of the Haitian” people without accurately counting the unfair circumstances concerning the November elections. If the United States is going to play a role, public integrity calls for us to do for others what we would do for our own citizens: equal access and equal protection for those who want to participate in the democratic process.

On January 7, 2010, Cheryl Mills, Counselor and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conceded that the United States would consider new elections if an OAS report recommended it. Philip Crowley, spokesman for the State Department, stated that “the first results did not reflect the vote of the people of Haiti,” and added that, “strong indications that significant electoral fraud has been recorded and preliminary results disclosed do not reflect the actual vote of the Haitian people.” Let us not attempt to disguise what we already know: the will of the people of Haiti was not, in good faith, represented. We believe that the recommendation of a new election should be included in the OAS report, and it should not be endorsed, in its entirety, as it currently stands.

The “will of the Haitian people” is yet to be determined. We urge the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to support a recommendation of new elections for Haiti. We are accountable for those things we say we support as a nation. As part of the very fabric of this country, the Congressional Black Caucus calls for a different message to be relayed to the people of Haiti.”

- Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, II

Chair, Congressional Black Caucus Foreign Policy Task Force

–Hon. Donald M. Payne

Chair, Congressional Black Caucus

http://haitiantoday.com/americas/congressional-black-caucus-calls-for-new-elections-in-haiti

“I applaud Secretary Clinton’s decision to visit Haiti and her reaffirmation of the United States’ support for democracy in Haiti. I am also pleased that the Secretary stated that humanitarian aid will continue regardless of the outcome of upcoming elections,”  Conyers said.  “However, I disagree with her unequivocal support of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) recommendations addressing voter fraud in the previous election.   In order to ensure that all Haitian voices are heard in this election, the electoral process should be restarted.”

http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentRecord_id=e1b83aee-19b9-b4b1-12f3-57e37d0c7ffe&FuseAction=News.PressReleases

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This issue brief reviews a draft report [PDF] on Haiti’s November 28, 2010 presidential elections from the Organization of American States’ (OAS) “Expert” Mission – which recommends changing the result of the first round of the election. It finds the OAS Mission’s report to be methodologically and statistically flawed, and its conclusions to be arbitrary. The brief notes that over 1,300 tally sheets, or about six times the amount thrown out by the OAS, were missing or quarantined; and that these tally sheets would very likely have given a different result from that of the OAS mission. Also, the OAS Mission’s report is based on an analysis of just 919 vote tally sheets – without any reported statistical inference — whereas CEPR counted and analyzed all 11,181 tally sheets from the first round of elections.

Download (PDF, 115.5KB)

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti-oas-analysis-2011–01.pdf