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26276: Hermantin(News)Observers fear bid to rig Haiti's November election (fwd)




From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Sep. 17, 2005


HAITI
Observers fear bid to rig Haiti's November election
U.N. and Haitian officials are worried that the nation's presidential election will be mired by tampering and fraud.
BY JOE MOZINGO
jmozingo@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - U.N. and Haitian electoral officials say that mounting reports of fraud and a lack of transparency could undermine the legitimacy of elections in November and the hopes of restoring democracy in this troubled nation.

''The stage is being set for something horribly wrong to happen,'' said Patrick Féquiere, a member of the government's Provisional Electoral Council who regularly criticizes his colleagues.

United Nations officials are more cautious in their statements but echo his concerns about a lack of transparency while critical jobs deep in the electoral bureaucracy go to people who might rig the results of the presidential and legislative elections.

''When you're transparent, you have no choice but to be honest,'' said Gérard Le Chevallier, the chief of electoral assistance for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti. ``The problem is, this Electoral Council is not perceived as being transparent enough.''

The nine-member council was set up to organize new elections after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster during an armed rebellion last year. Each member represents a political party or sector of society, but Aristide's Lavalas Family Party has refused to appoint its envoy and until recently was boycotting the entire election process.

Most international observers agree that Lavalas -- the only party with proven support among Haiti's destitute majority -- must be included in the election for the subsequent government to have legitimacy in the eyes of most Haitians. But after the rebellion many of its leaders went into exile and others have been imprisoned, harassed or even killed by police.

On a political level, even U.S. and U.N. officials concede that the interim government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, backed by Washington and some 8,000 U.N. peacekeepers, is deeply biased against Lavalas.

But the Electoral Council insists that it is working feverishly to create fair and transparent balloting on Nov. 20. Runoffs are set for Jan. 3 if no candidate wins more than 50 percent in the first round.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted a meeting on the general topic of the Haitian elections Wednesday with diplomats from several countries that have contributed to the peacekeeping force, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is planning another today in New York.

At least a dozen presidential candidates were registered on Thursday -- the last day allowed -- from Dumarsais Simeus, a rich Haitian businessman living in Texas, to former President René Preval and former Prime Minister Marc Bazin.

Not allowed to register so far has been the Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest and well known Haitian rights activist when he lived in Miami who seems to be the Lavalas favorite. Election officials say he must register in person -- but he's in jail, under investigation for the murder of a journalistHe says his detention is political.

Rosemond Pradel, the Election Council's director general, said it will not block Lavalas from running, and has invited all types of Haitian and international organizations to observe the electoral process. ''Everything we do is by the rules,'' he said. ``People have complained that we are too transparent.''

Féquiere disagrees.

''There is a definite conspiracy by a group of council members to control the institution by planting their own people inside,'' said Féquiere, a businessman who represents several minority parties on the council. ``Most of the corruption does not take place in the central office. It's out there in the field.''

In memos to his colleagues and to Interim President Boniface Alexandre, Féquiere detailed numerous allegations in which officials subverted the process of awarding jobs to candidates who score highest on exams.

In one dated June 13, he demanded the council investigate allegations that exam results for data entry operators in southwestern Haiti were falsified. ''Those who manipulate examination results today are the same ones who will attempt to manipulate election results tomorrow,'' he wrote.

In June, U.N. advisors heard allegations that candidates for a local elections office in the Artibonite Valley had obtained the questionnaire ahead of time. The alleged cheaters were ''affiliated'' with a regional party whose whose leader is Youri Latortue, a nephew of the prime minister, head of his security and possible Senate candidate.

Pradel said there is no proof of this allegation and called Féquiere ``kind of a crazy man who says whatever he wants.''

All in all, he said reports of fraud are relatively minor in the grand scheme of the effort: building an entirely new elections apparatus from scratch, registering more than 2.1 million voters so far, and holding an election for up to 9,000 political posts in a turbulent, mountainous country with few roads and working phone lines and scant electricity.

Several months ago, few Haitians believed it would really happen this year. But as the Organization of American States' effort to register voters finally got moving this summer after weeks of faltering, those doubts have diminished.

Now the question has turned from one of technical feasibility to one of quality: Will this election be viewed as free and fair?

According to officials involved in the preparations, U.N. representatives had to pressure the council to give Lavalas, which fell into disarray following Aristide's departure, time to gather the 5,000 signatures required to register for the elections.

Several Lavalas leaders recently declared their presidential candidate would be Jean-Juste, deemed a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Lavalas leaders see his imprisonment, as well as that of untold numbers of other Aristide supporters, as blatant political persecution and many are urging members to boycott the elections until they are released.

But other Lavalas leaders are preparing for the ballot, fearing that they will suffer further if their voice is not heard at election time.