16640: Dailey: to Arthur re respect for the Constitution

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Peter Dailey <phdailey@msn.com>

The Parti Louvri Barye's call on the opposition to honor the
constitutionally
specified term of office of President Jean Bertrand Aristide seems to me
an
initiative deserving of all our support. And nothing would be more likely
to
produce this result than a statement by Aristide that he intends to honor
the
constitutionally specified term of office by stepping down in February,
2006,
and will not run his American- and constitutionally ineligible- wife as a
surrogate.

I know that last November, when Aristide was on the ropes, he made a
number of
statements the gist of which was that when the constitution states five
years,
it means five, and not four or six, but I'm not aware that he has had
anything
to say on the subject since. And when a group of FL Senators spoke last
spring
of the urgent need to amend the constitution to remove the
disqualification
against foreign citizens holding high office- something already waived for
Yves Neptune- to increase the presidential term to ten years, and to
remove the bar
to successive terms, he had no comment. This silence was particularly
conspicuous in the wake of Father William Smaarth trenchant homily at
Antoine
Adrien's funeral.

So where do you think this is going Charles? I'm not going to pretend that
I
know, although I'm aware of what some more cynical than myself have
suggested.
The Quixhote Center posted something with a long list of Solidarity
Movement
subscribers stating that "Haiti's democracy is in danger if elections do
not
take place before January 2004, when the terms of most legislators
expire." When Rene Preval was President he failed to call elections from
May,
1997 to May, 2001, and I don't remember the Solidarity movement having
anything
to say about it then. While the hypocrisy of this is patent, it is not
offensively so- for politicians, even of that stripe, hypocrisy is like
bottled
oxygen for a mountaineer, enabling him to scale new heights! I'm just not
sure
why the Solidarity movement regards this as the most urgent question
facing
Haiti today- its not as though anything else is working. And I hope you
don't
think this is what Michelle Karshan would call a "suspect" question.

Regards,
Peter