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25318: Hermantin(news)Obstacles abound in Haiti vote (fwd)
From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>
Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2005
HAITI
Obstacles abound in Haiti vote
More than a year after Haiti's elected president was forced out during an armed
revolt, officials are now facing daunting obstacles to prepare for elections in
the fall.
BY JOE MOZINGO
jmozingo@herald.com
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Facing persistent doubts and a litany of obstacles,
international and Haitian technocrats are scrambling to prepare for elections
this fall in a country still convulsing with political violence after an armed
revolt last year.
The electoral headquarters has been hit by a grenade and machine-gun fire. The
nation's electoral council is paralyzed by infighting. A campaign to register
up to 4.5 million eligible voters has signed up only 113,000 in a month and a
half.
And violence in the capital is causing such bloodshed that the U.S. State
Department's top official for the Americas, Roger Noriega, has planned a hasty
visit to Port-au-Prince today to assess the situation. On Tuesday, his boss,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the U.N. peacekeepers here need to
boost their 7,400-member force to ``really get ready, so that these elections
are a success.''
Yet even if the security situation does somehow improve, a thunderhead of
political animosity looming over Haiti could douse the whole electoral effort.
A CREDIBLE VOTE?
The only party with proven widespread support among Haiti's abjectly poor
majority is the Lavalas Family of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who
fled the country during the revolt in February 2004. Furious at his ouster, the
party has so far refused to participate in the electoral process, threatening
to undermine the legitimacy of the elections.
That could be a devastating blow to the country's hopes for political
stability, and an embarrassing turn for Washington, which refused to rush to
Aristide's help during the revolt and then propped up the interim government
that replaced him.
''The U.S. believes strongly that elections not only need to take place this
year, but will take place,'' U.S. Ambassador James B. Foley told The Herald
last month.
`LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE'
U.N. and Haitian election officials say they plan to hold local, parliamentary
and presidential elections as scheduled, in three rounds between Oct. 9 and
Dec. 18. As Haiti's first elections since Aristide won the presidency in 2000,
they will see some 10,000 posts up for grabs, and at least 95 parties
registered.
''It's a logistical nightmare, but it's moving ahead, it's happening,'' said
Gérard Le Chevallier, a Salvadoran citizen and chief of electoral assistance
for the U.N. Mission in Haiti.
At an expected total cost of $61 million -- pledged by international donors --
officials plan to open more than 600 voting centers in even the most isolated
villages, miles from any road.
But the European Union is holding up nearly $10 million until the Provisional
Electoral Council pulls itself together after it fell into disarray when its
president resigned in November. Just last week, the council's operations chief
said the group had no functioning administration and would, at earliest, be
able to hold the first election in December.
Le Chevallier said the council is resolving its problems. And Elizabeth Spehar
of the Organization of American States, which is running the registration
campaign, said the effort should quickly accelerate as new registration centers
open up. While only 26 of the 424 needed centers have been opened, she said she
expects a majority to be up and running by the end of the month.
INSTABILITY A THREAT
But many fear Haiti, perennially battered by political violence, is simply not
stable enough to hold free and fair ballots.
Pro-Aristide gangs are openly fighting U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police in
the capital's sprawling seaside slum of Cité Soleil. Common crime is surging,
particularly kidnappings and carjackings.
''Elections are a dangerous thing. If they are poorly handled, it could be a
disaster,'' said Robert Fatton Jr., a Haiti expert and political professor at
the University of Virginia.
Critically, Lavalas' refusal to take part in the process on the grounds that
its supporters are being summarily shot or arrested by police poses a
significant threat to whether the elections are seen as credible. The party is
using the same tactic that Aristide's opponents used in 2000, when they
boycotted the presidential election and largely convinced the international
community that his victory was fraudulent.
Now the interim government, backed by those rivals, has done little to bring
Lavalas into the process. Most notably, Haitian authorities have refused
demands -- by Lavalas, the United Nations and even their U.S. benefactors -- to
release Aristide's jailed prime minister, Yvon Neptune.
He was arrested nearly 11 months ago on charges that he orchestrated a massacre
of political opponents. He has been on an on-and-off hunger strike, but so far
prosecutors have not publicly presented any evidence against him.
Human rights groups say Neptune is simply the public face of a broader trend in
which hundreds of lesser-known Aristide supporters are locked up. In sharp
contrast, Haitian judges have exonerated dozens of military and paramilitary
officers accused of killing Aristide supporters during the 1991 military coup
that sent him into exile for three years.
''That is certainly not the way you're going to draw even moderate Lavalas
people into elections,'' Fatton said. ``And it's inconceivable that you have
credible elections without Lavalas.''
LAVALAS SPLIT, TOO
But Lavalas is increasingly divided between hard-liners and those who have
expressed interest in moving forward with the elections as candidates from
other parties begin to emerge.
Evans Paul, a one-time confidant of Aristide and Port-au-Prince mayor who
became one of his most vocal opponents, said the lack of a dominant party
leaves a fair and open playing field never seen before in Haiti.
''There is no illegitimate force to violate the election like in the past,''
said Paul, secretary general of the United Democratic Convention. ``The police
are still too weak to do that. . . . There is no political party that can do
it.''
ELECTIONS CRUCIAL
He and others say it is crucial that Haiti elect its own government and free
itself of foreign control by U.N. peacekeepers, the third occupation in the
past century.
''We have to have elections,'' said Guy Philippe, a likely presidential
candidate and one of the leaders of the revolt that pushed Aristide out. ``If
we don't, it will be chaos and more international intervention.''
On a recent morning at a registration center in the suburb of Carrefour,
Senatus Gerald, 21, was in line before it opened. Like many Haitians, he wants
the new national ID card that comes with registration. And he wants to vote.
''I would like for the young people to have a chance,'' he said. ``The country
needs to change. I just hope security tightens up.''
Le Chevallier, the U.N. elections advisor, notes elections have been held in
far more violent environments, from the Middle East and Africa to his native
Central America.
''People were shooting at the lines in Salvador,'' he said. ``There was
shooting here in 1986 and 1987. Democracy is a gradual process.''