18490: Saint-Vil provides quotes to Laleau: Re: Presidential Election Nov 2000 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jean Saint-Vil <jafrikayiti@hotmail.com>


"As I understand it, the majority did not go out and vote--a small percentage
of registered voters actually voted. Of those who did vote, Aristide received a
majority of them". --nancy laleau

Actually, this is NOT what the record tells us... It appears on the contrary
that the percentage of registered voters who did cast their vote was rather
high on November 26, 2000.

According to Global Exchange, one of several independant organization that sent
observers, despite the concerted U.S., E.U. and local opposition boycott (the
outcome of the election has been predictable since February 7, 1995 when
Aristide was forced to leave office after a truncated mandate (1.5 out of 5
years served in office):

The Quotes:

http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/haiti/history.html

November 26, 2000

  Despite a boycott by the opposition convergence, the CEP reports 60% overall
voter turnout, with turnout some rural precincts reaching over 80%.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is declared the winner, defeating seven other unknown
candidates.

This report of CSIS, gives more context...
http://www.csis.org/isp/pcr/hewg_elections.pdf

"Haitian presidential elections again took place on 26 November 2000. Observing
the elections were the International Coalition of Independent Observers (ICIO)
with 26 observers, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) with 4 observers, and the
national peasant group KOZEPÉP with 6,000 observers. The United States, OAS and
UN did not provide observers for this round of elections. The ICIO observers
met with local community leaders in order to more completely understand the
context of Election Day in each locale.

The CEP released figures stating that over 60% of registered voters turned out
for the 26 November 2000 elections. Both ICIO and KOZEPÉP estimations agreed
with this figure. Meanwhile, the Caricom report estimated a 15-20% turnout. On
November 29, the CEP officially recognized Jean-Bertrand Aristide as the winner
with approximately 92% of the vote (over 2.6 million votes)."

Further insight on what really happened in Haiti on Novemeber 26, 2000 was
provided by M. Guy Antoine who was part of the ICIO observer team....:

See : The Nov 26 2000 elections by Guy S. Antoine, December 2000 on
www.windowsonhaiti.com

"At the end of the day, we also measured the number of people who came to vote
against the number of people who registered to vote at many of those polling
stations that fell under our direct observation.

We saw and did the math. We did not rely on what a couple of friends were
saying based on no respectable methodology whatsoever. We did not rely on the
media, which in Haiti is nothing but aligned. We did not rely on the foreign
press. We did not rely on U.S. State department communiqués. Let me lose all
measure of politeness here: I do not care whatever the hell others are saying
in that matter, I know what I have duly observed and recorded, and will
continue to report only the results of my observations. I did not work from
6:00a.m. to 9:00p.m. to satisfy the political or ideological cravings of
others!

I do have a few reservations, though. I do not have a great measure of
statistical confidence in any national projection that might have been reported
by any member of the ICIO. The reason is simple: what I observed in Jeremie
(90% turnout of those who had registered to vote) may not at all be
representative of the department of Grande Anse. The same logic carries through
with the other aforementioned locales for their respective departments, not to
mention the 5 other departments we were not deployed in. We simply were not
enough observers in enough corners of the country. We did not have the
resources to deploy ourselves satisfactorily throughout the country, though we
far outnumbered the four or five CARICOM observers who stayed only in
Port-au-Prince! "
--------

regards,



Jafrikayiti

«Depi nan Ginen bon nèg ap ede nèg!»
http://www.jafrikayiti.com

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