#4964: Leon Manus (CEP President) Letter to the President of the Senate date Aug 8, 2000 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley Lucas <slucas@iri.org>


      Mr. Edgard Leblanc  
      Président du Sénat de la République d'Haïti 
      Port- au-Prince, Haïti  

Honorable Président, 
I send you my patriotic salutations and in my capacity as president of the Provisional Electoral Council communicate the following points.
Analysis of the legislative and local elections of May 21 and July 9 shows that they are not legally valid for the following reasons:

  1.. massive electoral fraud 
  2.. incorrect and illegal method of counting the votes 
  3.. law governing runoff elections 
The incorrect method of calculating the votes used in the senatorial elections should not be cited as the only reason for annulation of the elections.

In effect, despite the massive participation of the population, heavy frauds, denounced by the political parties of the opposition (falsification of tally sheets, theft of ballot boxes, destruction of ballots), was committed on almost all the territory of the Republic, notably in the capital, Gonâve Island, the Département de l'Artibonite, the Central Plateau (Center Department), and the departments of the Nord and the Nord Ouest during the evening and throughout the night of May 21. None of these challenges has been addressed as required by the electoral law (Articles 166, 167, 168, 169, 170). 

No official response has been given to the different parties and contenders engaged in the process by the electoral commission.

The police, charged with maintaining order and public safety, unfortunately participated in a number of fraudulent acts. Illegal interventions were reported by the opposition political parties and members of the regional electoral offices in the Central Plateau and the Department of the North as well as by many other electoral offices in the Northeast and Artibonite departments. These police never intervened or took action against any of the criminals who during the night after the vote flagrantly covered the streets of Port-au-Prince with torn-up ballots and ballot boxes.

Also, the method of counting the votes used by the technical department of the CEP and rejected by the OAS observation mission, was first defended by the president of the CEP who - after reflection and study - recognized that the procedure was incorrect and did not conform with the constitution and electoral law.

The law requires that to be elected a candidate must get an absolute majority (50 percent plus one; Article 64 of the electoral law).

Any other method that was used before by the CEP of adding up the votes of the top four candidates must be rejected because it does not conform to the electoral law and constitution, which is the supreme law that must always prevail.

The political parties, Haitian civil society, and the international community, aware of this grave error, have demanded a revision of the count.

The executive branch, the Lavalas Party and the CEP refuse to recognize this error which is at the basis of the false results of the elections.

The CEP, in defiance of the law, officially proclaimed the results of the first round. This was for Haiti a wholesale rejection of the democratic process.

Continuing to defy the constitutional challenges of the political parties and the social and professional organizations as well as the declarations of the international community that the execution of the plan would bring about nonrecognition of these elections, the electoral institution and the executive decided to go on to the second round.

The first round was recognized by neither the opposition political parties nor the international community, so it is evident that the second-round election would meet the same fate. It should be considered null and void.

As a result the parliament arising from this process is illegal, illegitimate, and built on false premises, and cannot be validated with perjuring the nation.

Confident in your civic and patriotic honor I know that you will oppose this act of sacrilege and will remain loyal to the electoral law and constitution.

Again, Honorable President, my sincere and patriotic salutations.

Léon Manus,  President of the Provisional Electoral Council
CC : OAS / European Union/United States/National Coalition for Haitian Rights/Human Rights Watch/Press