12043: Patterns Behind the Politics of Haiti and Issues for the International Community (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Patterns Behind the Politics of Haiti and Issues for the International
Community

The Crisis of Legitimacy in Haiti

    The politics of Haiti today revolves largely around President Aristide's
attempt to consolidate his personal rule and the oppositions' faltering
attempt to clearly define an alternative. The reinstatement of personal
rule, while drawing on deep traditions of patronage and clientship, is
difficult to achieve when most of the hemisphere is heading in the opposite
direction. Haiti itself has experienced a democratic wave since the ouster
of Baby Doc in 1986. The relapse into personalistic and/or familial rule
strikes most of the intelligentsia, middle class and Diaspora as dangerously
anachronistic, prone to violence, and likely to condemn Haiti to an unstable
pariah status. As corruption within the regime surfaces, notably in a recent
scandal during which ruling-party legislators sought to sell donated rice,
these suspicions are increasingly shared by the population at large.Although
60 percent of the electorate voted in the first round of the May 2000
legislative elections, that percentage dropped to 5 to 15 percent in the
fraudulent, uncontested second round and uncontested presidential race-a
significant withdrawal indicating lack of enthusiasm of the population to
the Aristide consolidation.

Although polling in Haiti is in its infancy, pre-election polls such as the
ECOSOF poll, the results of the first round, and scattered polls since
suggest that Aristide's Lavalas Family party is the largest but far from the
only party in Haiti with a popular following. The quick rise of the social
Christian MOCHRENA party was foreseen in the ECOSOF poll and reflected in
the May 2000 results. Another significant aspect of the ECOSOF poll was the
large number of undecided. Altogether, the scattered non-FL parties
outpolled the FL in four of the eight departments' senatorial races on May
20, albeit in the less populous departments, and in two-thirds of the
lower-chamber races. Had the runoff been held legally, the scattered non-FL
parties, forced by the French second-round system to unify behind one
candidate, could have embarrassed the FL in many of the eleven senatorial
races that, by the electoral commissioner's calculations, were still up for
grabs, as well as in many of the lower-chamber races.

Despite Aristide's attempt to scapegoat the opposition for foreign economic
sanctions, the usual disadvantages of incumbency during economic decline are
likely to hold for the FL if it faces the voters again in clean elections.
Aristide thus faces the difficult task of avoiding such elections under
increased international scrutiny, which now includes a resident OAS mission.
Repression of the opposition under some pretext may again become an
attractive option, especially if Aristide calculates that his expensive
lobbying in the United States through U.S. surrogates will be enough to
deflect foreign criticism. On April 16 two top gang leaders, closely allied
to Aristide by ties of patronage and clientship, threatened new violence to
the opposition far greater than that perpetrated on December 17, when they
burnt down the homes and offices of much of the opposition. Aristide faces
the difficult balancing act of distancing himself from these gangs publicly
while maintaining the close ties of patronage that keep these armed
followers in his camp. The gang members' proclivity to appear before cameras
at government ministries demanding jobs and payment for their latest
"operation" is a further complicating factor to a strategy of plausible
deniabilty.
James R. Morrell
Haiti Democracy Project
2303 17th St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 588-8700
e-mail:  james.morrell@inxil.com
web page:  http://haitipolicy.org