27026: Craig (news) Constitution Loses in Haiti Election Fight: Analysts (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Constitution Loses in Haiti Election Fight: Analysts

By REUTERS
Published: December 27, 2005
Filed at 11:52 a.m. ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - Haiti's constitution is being violated by both the 
U.S.-backed interim government and by the candidacy of a Haitian American 
millionaire running strongly in the polls in a long delayed election, analysts 
say.

``The government has not been paying much attention to the constitution,'' said 
Brian Concannon, a U.S. lawyer who worked in Haiti and helped prosecute 
military leaders accused of a peasant massacre.

The first round of voting in the troubled Caribbean nation is scheduled for 
January 8 with a run-off, if needed, on February 15. But elections officials 
have said another delay seems likely.

Dumarsais Simeus, the Haiti-born founder of a Texas food company, has been 
running second to former President Rene Preval, but the Provisional Electoral 
Council, which organizes elections, has twice said Simeus cannot run because he 
is an American citizen.

Haiti's 1987 constitution, a point of pride when it was written in an 
impoverished nation struggling to recover from decades of dictatorship, 
requires presidential candidates to be Haitian citizens. It also says 
citizenship is lost by ''naturalization in a foreign country.''

Yet Haiti's Supreme Court has twice ruled that Simeus should be put on the 
ballot.

On December 9, the day after the Supreme Court's latest ruling on Simeus, Prime 
Minister Gerard Latortue fired five high court justices. Latortue was chosen by 
a council of elders after elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced 
into exile 22 months ago.

``It's a little ironic that he (Latortue) is saying Simeus isn't legitimate. To 
be a prime minister or president you should have to have five years residency 
(in Haiti),'' said Concannon. Latortue lived in Florida before taking office.

Asked about the controversy, Simeus said tersely in a recent interview: ``I 
don't want to debate the constitution. The Supreme Court reviewed the case.''

``I have Haitian nationality of origin. My grandparents and parents were 
descendants of slaves. This Haitian nationality cannot be lost,'' he added, 
describing Latortue's interim government as one of ``total anarchy, total 
lawlessness, total dictatorship.''

WIDER CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

The machinations over Simeus' candidacy and the jailing without charges of 
hundreds of Aristide supporters, widely criticized by human rights groups, are 
symptoms of disrespect for institutions of democracy that have been slow to 
take root in the former slave colony, analysts say.

Jean-Germain Gros, a Haitian-born assistant professor of political science at 
the University of Missouri, said Haitians seem to believe the constitution is 
only ``suggestive.''

``The clauses of the constitution are suggestions only. They are not things 
that are binding,'' he said.

``Haiti is a failed state and when you have a failed state, nothing else works. 
Not the constitution, not the economy,'' Gros added. ``The real issue in Haiti 
is the absence of a state.''

Analysts say Latortue's interim government has already violated a key provision 
of the constitution by failing to hold elections within 90 days of Aristide's 
ouster in February 2004, and seems destined to violate another by failing to 
inaugurate an elected president by February 7.

``The rule of law is thin in Haiti,'' said Harvard University professor Robert 
Rotberg, who has written extensively on Haiti. ''I think if you asked a cross 
section of a lot of Haitians if they had a constitution, they would not know 
how to answer you.''

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-haiti-constitution.html