HAITI LIBERTE
"Justice. Verite. Independance."
* THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
April 15 - 21, 2009
Vol. 2, No. 39
AS DONORS MEET IN WASHINGTON, DC:
HAITIAN ELECTIONS IN DOUBT
by Kim Ives
In the face of widespread consternation and a boycott by Haiti's largest party, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) plans to go forward with partial Senate elections this weekend, just days after international donors met in Washington, DC in an effort to raise money for the cash-strapped country.
Two months ago, the CEP excluded former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family party (FL) on the grounds that he had not signed the registration documents for his party's candidates for the 12 Senate seats being filled (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 2, No. 31, 2/18/2009).
Aristide, who is still in exile in South Africa, is not required to sign the documents. Another party designee can and has done so in years past, including this year. Furthermore, it would be difficult and politically awkward for Aristide to sign the documents at the Haitian Embassy in Pretoria, as he would have had to.
In response to its disqualification, the party has launched "Operation Closed Doors," a campaign urging the Haitian people to shun the Apr. 19 polling. The call comes after a Haitian court ruled Mar. 9 that the CEP had acted illegally in disqualifying the Lavalas Family (see Haiti Liberté, Vol.
2, No. 34, 3/11/2009). The CEP, however, has ignored the ruling, being constitutionally autonomous and outside court and government jurisdiction in electoral matters.
(Judge Jean-Claude Douyon, who made the ruling against the CEP, was fired by Haitian Justice Minister Jean-Joseph Exumé on Apr. 3 for alleged corruption.
Douyon, however, says his dismissal was retaliation for hearing the case, according to the Haiti Information Project's Kevin Pina.)
Thousands of demonstrators marched through the capital on Feb. 28, the fifth anniversary of the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'état against Aristide, to demand his return to Haiti and the party's inclusion in the elections. Another march of some 10,000 on Mar. 27 shook Haiti's second city, Cap Haitien.
The Haitian Priorities Project (HPP), based in the U.S. and Haiti, estimated that only 5% of eligible voters would turn out on Apr. 19, based on polling conducted of some 65,000 people by 70 investigators during eight days in early April.
"If the Lavalas Family is not part of the election, then there will be no free and fair election," said a Lavalas Family member at a demonstration outside CEP headquarters last month. "Whatever happens will just be a selection."
Even organizationally, the election appears destined for trouble. Although CEP spokesman Frantz Bernadin claimed that ballots and other voting materials were already distributed to Departmental Electoral Offices - known as BEDs - several press reports said that two-thirds of the 600,000 new electoral cards were not yet distributed to voters with less than a week to go.
There are 78 candidates from only 16 of Haiti's 49 registered parties - along with some independents - running for the 12 seats. The elections, which have been postponed for about a year and a half, are costing more than
$15 million.
In an effort to promote the elections, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Haiti on Apr. 16, as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, did with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Mar. 9 (see Haiti Liberté, Vol. 2, No. 34, 3/11/2009). In Port-au-Prince, she will meet with President René Préval, as she did on Feb. 5 in Washington. (The same day she will travel on to the Dominican Republic and then on Apr. 17 to Trinidad and Tobago, where she will attend the three-day Summit of the Americas along with President Barack Obama in Port of Spain.)
The push for elections will come after a push for aid. On Apr. 14, Hillary Clinton, along with Ban Ki-moon, French Deputy Foreign Minister Rama Yade, and Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis, attended a donors conference of about 30 nations and multilateral agencies in Washington, organized by the Haitian government and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Clinton pledged $57 million from the U.S. government, including $20 million for infrastructure repair, $20 million for debt relief, and $15 million for food aid.
The $125 million Pierre-Louis aimed to raise on Apr. 14 is just to close this year's budget deficit, Haiti's Economy and Finance Minister Daniel Dorsainvil told The Wall Street Journal. In addition, the Haitian government is looking for pledges of $2 billion, half of a $4 billion three-year poverty reduction program.
The government came away from the conference with pledges of $324 million for the next two years. Time will tell how much of that sum will actually be delivered as the world capitalist crisis deepens in the months ahead.
Washington is very concerned about Haiti's political stability, as indicated by the donors conference, the high-level visits, and a spate of articles and editorials by Ban Ki-moon and others in leading U.S. dailies like the New York Times and Miami Herald over the past two months.
"We are treading on very fragile ground," Pierre-Louis told the donors conference. "If no action is taken now the consequences will be catastrophic."
Catastrophic instability, however, may well result, sooner or later, from the exclusionary Apr. 19 elections. Despite attempts to raise money to avert disaster, by keeping Aristide in exile and his party out of the Senate elections the Préval/Pierre-Louis government, and its international backers, may be engaged in the futile exercise described in a Haitian proverb: "Lave men, siye ate." Wash one's hands but then dry them in the dirt.
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