18492: Esser: Re: 18453: Simidor: Give Haiti a chance (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Simidor states that Aristide has a weak mandate. Can you please tell
us where this number of 15% electoral participation comes from? The
OAS and other sources put the voter participation at about 60% in the
2000 elections. While I am critical of the OAS, I have no indications
that their voter turnout figures are inflated by 45%, can you explain
to us what their rationale would be for grossly inflating the
numbers? And which other organisations of international standing have
reported such a low turnout? And please AP, Reuters et al don't
count, they can't even look up the numbers of Gonaives residents as
we have seen in the past few days and come instead up with wildly
diverging counts.

You can find the OAS numbers on the site of the International
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Sweden:
http://www.idea.int/voter_turnout%5C/northamerica/haiti.html

Disliking Aristide is one thing, but spreading questionable figures,
in essence supporting an opposition that's mainly comprised of far
right wing figures with no support in the Haitian population, sweat
shop owners and others that are not on record to favor democracy
seems dangerous to say the least.


>Daniel Simidor <karioka9@mail.arczip.com> writes:
...
>Mr. Aristide came back to power with a weak mandate: less than 15%
>of the electorate voted in the 2000 presidential elections.
...

.