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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.