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#2872: EU presidency regrets Haiti elections delay (fwd)
From:nozier@tradewind.net
WIRE:03/16/2000 14:03:00 ET
EU presidency regrets Haiti elections delay
LISBON, March 16 (Reuters) - The European Union on Thursday said it
regretted new delays in holding elections in Haiti, adding that foreign
aid could only flow if all the Caribbean nation's institutions were up
and working. A decree by Haitian President Rene Preval on Wednesday
cast new doubts about when elections would be held, as it made no
mention of a new date, although the country's electoral council last
week scheduled legislative polls for April 9. Haiti, the poorest
nation in the Americas and trying to shake off a long history of
dictatorship, last held an election in April 1997, when only 5 percent
of voters turned out and the results were annulled because of
widespread fraud. "The European Union regrets that, 14 months after the
parliament was declared closed and a year after the naming of the
electoral council, the Haitian authorities still do not fulfil all
necessary conditions to guarantee free elections," said a statement
released in Portugal, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
Polls had been slated for March 19, but were postponed over problems
registering Haiti's more than four million voters, the third delay in
four months. The EU noted that Haiti's constitution required a new
legislature to convene by the second Monday of June. "European aid can
only proceed and fully develop if all the (Haitian) state's
constitutional bodies are working," the statement said. Preval has been
ruling by decree since dissolving parliament in January 1999 in an
effort to end a paralysis in the functioning of the government.
The delayed elections are to fill 10,000 vacant local and national
posts.