16715: Louis: Re: 16711: Archer: question on Haiti's mayors (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Louis0565@aol.com

I hope this would be helpful. So far, that's what I found.
Louis

The constitution of 1987 recognizes three levels of local authorities for the country: the communal section, the commune and the department.
The department is managed by a council whose members are elected by the departmental Assembly called to assist in its duties. This is a new structure brought by the Haitian constitution of 1987. The Departmental Assembly receives State subsidies necessary to its operation.

The commune is most commonly known entity among the three local authorities. It is managed by a Town council elected for 4 years by the people (of the commune). On paper, it is autonomous financially and administratively.

The communal section though is the basic cell of the representative democracy (in spirit and word of the law). It is managed by an elected council called Administrative Council of the Communal Cell (section). According to the spirit and the law relating to the organization of the communal section, this entity profits from the administrative and financial autonomy.  On paper, the communal section does not have anything to resent from the communal section and the commune. For reasons related to the history of the administrative centralism which characterizes today the State of Haiti, the commune and the communal section are still striving to play a respected, autonomous role as local authorities.

This organization with the three levels known as the territorial collectivities mobilizes :
- 565 Administrative Councils of communal section (CASEC in French)
- 565 Assemblies of Communal Cell (ASEC) which assist the CASEC.
- 133 Town Councils (Conseils Municipaux –CM). For your specific question, it would be 133 Mayors and 266 assistants. We need also to check if any region has not been raised to the rank of commune the past three years.
- 9 Departmental Councils (Conseils départementaux -CD)
- 9 Departmental Assemblies (Assemblées départementales -AD)
- 1 Interdepartmental Council (Conseil interdépartemental -CI)

You might be interesting in reading:
-   Third Conference of the United Nations on the Least developed countries, Country Documents, Haiti- Memoire de la Republique d’Haiti. It can be found on the United Nations and ECOSOC web site.
-   Panorama of the Haitian Economy, publication of ECOSOF, SA-Haiti
-   Investir dans l’Humain (Livre blanc of Lavalas Party ) by President Aristide.
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