24678: (news) Chamberlain: As Polls Near, Challenges Pile Up

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

As Polls Near, Challenges Pile Up
By Jane Regan 


PORT-AU-PRINCE, 5 Apr 05 (IPS) - For over a year now, Haitian political
parties, U.N. officials and foreign consultants armed with plans, charts
and millions upon millions of dollars have been planning for Haiti's
general elections. 

But just seven months away from races for over 1,000 posts, elections don't
yet have the feel of a shoo-in. 

One of the most vocal parties -- Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family --
is still on the sidelines and its supporters, sometimes thousands of them,
hold demonstrations to denounce the planned contests. 

Not that their anger surprises anyone. Aristide was ousted on Feb. 29,
2004, after a bitter two-year anti-government movement and a brief armed
insurgency, both of which had at least some foreign encouragement. 

Hours after Aristide left on a U.S.-chartered plane, his country was being
occupied by a U.S.-led multinational force. The former priest and two-time
president says he was kidnapped in a U.S. and French government-supported
"modern day coup d'état." 

Added to the Lavalas conundrum, the Provisional Electional Council (CEP)
has to photograph, fingerprint and register 4.2 million voters in only
three months. 

And most concerning of all, the security situation appears to be going from
bad to worse, at least in the capital, with gang warfare, attacks on police
and U.N. peacekeepers, murders, kidnappings and even assaults on the CEP
headquarters. 

On Mar. 29, two truckloads of men armed with automatic weapons opened fire
on the compound, pocking the building and piercing an electricity
transformer. Three days earlier someone lobbed a grenade at the door. 

The national elections slated for Oct. 9 and Nov. 16 -- for every office
from local mayor up through president -- have been touted as a key part of
an internationally shepherded plan aimed at helping the country gain some
semblance of stability. 

Pulling off the races is the main task facing the caretaker government
installed after Aristide left. The U.S., Canada and the European Union have
pledged close to 40 million dollars to fund the polls and the Organisation
of American States has dedicated a phalanx of specialised staff. 

"Elections are the only way to assure the country moves forward," interim
Prime Minister Gérard Latortue said again on Mar. 31, during a visit to the
CEP one day after the attack. 

Elections are also the first priority of the Brazilian-led U.N.
peacekeeping mission that landed here nine months ago. The 7,400 soldiers
and police are to "provide a secure and stable environment within which the
constitutional and political process in Haiti can take place." 

But as members of the country's 91 political parties scurry around trying
to rouse a disinterested and even suspicious electorate, Lavalas is crying
foul. 

"As long as Aristide isn't back in Haiti, there won't be any elections,"
John Joel Joseph, a member of the Cité Soleil Lavalas political committee,
told IPS on Apr. 1. "If they want to do a 'selection' of one of the
mercenaries who work for the imperialists, fine, but you can't call that
elections." 

During the previous two days, several thousand Aristide supporters had
marched through the streets of his sprawling seaside slum and also through
Bel-Aire, a poor neighbourhood overlooking Haiti's National Palace, to call
for Aristide's return. 

Those neighbourhoods have also been the scenes of vicious battles between
rival gangs and between police and gang members claiming allegiance to
Lavalas. The violence has left over 400 dead since its eruption on Sep. 30,
2004. 

"No Aristide, no peace! Aristide for five years!" the jubilant marchers
chanted on Mar. 29 as they circled a bonfire with symbolic coffins for U.S.
President George Bush, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James B. Foley and a host
of Haitian officials. 

An effigy of Latortue blazed in the centre. 

But not all Lavalas Family party members want to sit this one out. 

Senator Gérald Gilles, who is still a senator but who has been without a
salary since the interim government closed parliament last year, is
planning to run. 

"There's a divergence in Lavalas right now," Gilles told IPS. "One tendency
does not want to participate, or it does but will not admit it, and the
other, the more moderate tendency, does. If we do not find unity amongst
ourselves, Lavalas could disappear.." [See sidebar for more on Lavalas] 

But Gilles also noted that for the moment he has to move around the country
carefully. He and other members of his party feel they are being unfairly
persecuted by the interim government. 

Several high-ranking party members, including former Prime Minister Yvon
Neptune, are in prison on charges related to repression but have yet to be
tried. Many other Lavalas supporters whom police say are gang members have
been picked up but not yet charged. Gilles himself was arrested and briefly
held. 

The senator also admitted that campaigning is not possible in
neighbourhoods dominated by what he calls pro-Aristide "extremists." 

"No intelligent person would hold a public meeting in Cité Soleil or
Bel-Aire," he said. 

Members of the CEP say they have tried to get the Lavalas Family to
participate in the elections, and are holding out hope that they will. 

"I am committed to making sure that all the political forces in Haiti get
equitable treatment," CEP member and businessman Patrick Féquière told IPS.


But Féquière's concerns are not limited to Lavalas. Before candidates can
even officially get on a ballot, the CEP needs to register all of Haiti's
voters using a new -- and what they say will be the country's first
fraud-proof -- elections system. 

Starting some time this month, all of Haiti's voting age population -- 4.2
million people -- will be invited to one of 424 registration offices where
they will have to prove their identity and then be photographed and
fingerprinted. 

If an adult does not have a driver's license or birth certificate or
similar paper, they have to come with two people who are already registered
and who will vouch for him or her. Once everyone has registered, identities
and fingerprints will be cross-checked in the capital and then the cards
will be distributed across the country. 

All in three months. 

"We will have 610 computers," CEP member Pierre Richard Duchemin explained
to an audience of party representatives at a meeting last week. 

Then, with a Power Point slide show, he illustrated that if each
registration takes between 10 and 16 minutes at 610 computers across the
nation, there will be about 61,000 new registrations a day. 

A challenge, to say the least, in a country with scant electricity and poor
roads, and where hundreds of thousands of people have no birth
certificates. 

But that is not what is worrying Féquière. He is more concerned about the
insecurity, and not just for the elections. 

"I don't think the CEP is in more danger than the average business person
sitting behind his desk," he said. "The entire country is hostage." 

While visiting the CEP last week, Latortue did not hide his frustration
with the U.N. peacekeeping mission. 

"The international community is officially in Haiti to help us," he said,
"but we don't always find them where we need them." 

A joint study by Harvard Law School students and a Brazilian human rights
group agreed. 

The blue helmets have "done little to establish stability, protect the
populace or curb human rights violations," they said. "Haiti is as insecure
as ever." 

Féquière went further. 

"The U.N. says elections are the priority," he ruminated. "But I wonder
about elections in this kind of situation. In a climate like this, is
elections what we need? Will that kind of elections resolve our problems?
It's not obvious to me."