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27637: Hermantin(News)Few recent elections have been truly free (fwd)
From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>
Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2006
VOTING HISTORY
Few recent elections have been truly free
The majority of recent Haitian elections have been marked by fraud and
manipulation.
BY DON BOHNING
Special to The Miami Herald
A look at the 15 Haitian elections since World War II shows that only two were
not determined by fraud, manipulation or some other form of chicanery or was
accompanied by such chaos that the results were discredited.
A third, the 1995 presidential election of René Préval -- the front-runner in
Tuesday's balloting -- came close but was plagued by low voter turnout and
claims of irregularities.
Here's a summary of some of the more significant recent elections or
referendums:
• Oct. 8, 1950 -- Haiti's first direct presidential election is won by Col.
Paul Magloire, chief of the military junta that toppled the previous president.
• April 30, 1961 -- President Franc¸ois ''Papa Doc'' Duvalier calls
parliamentary elections, puts his name at the bottom of the ballot and declares
himself the winner of a new six-year term with an official tally of 1,320,748
votes in favor and none against.
• Jan. 31, 1971 -- Duvalier calls a referendum to ratify his son, Jean-Claude,
as his successor. The official vote is 2,391,916 in favor and none against.
• March 29, 1987 -- In the first vote since the toppling of the Duvalier family
dictatorship the previous year, voters overwhelmingly approve a new Haitian
constitution in a vote free of violence and irregularities.
• Nov. 29, 1987 -- The first presidential elections of the post-Duvalier era
are canceled amid a bloodbath aided by the military rulers who succeeded
Jean-Claude Duvalier. Gunmen and machete-wielding goons kill more than 30
people, 14 of them at a polling station.
• Jan. 17, 1988 -- Leslie Manigat, a prominent political scientist exiled under
the Duvaliers, is elected president in voting run by military coup leaders.
While the election was not openly fraudulent, four leading candidates boycott
the election and both its credibility and outcome are widely questioned.
• Dec. 16, 1990 -- Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins the presidency with more than 67
percent of the vote in what is widely accepted as the first truly democratic
election in nearly 200 years of Haitian independence.
• Dec. 17, 1995 -- Préval, prime minister under Aristide, wins the presidency
with 88 percent of the vote among a field of 14. This comes close to being a
reasonably free and fair election.
• May 21, 2000 -- In the most controversial vote since the Duvalier era,
Aristide's Lavalas Family claims to have won 18 of 19 Senate seats. The head of
the Organization of American States's observer mission calls the announced
results neither ''accurate nor fair.'' Three members of the Haitian electoral
commission resign in protest, including its chief, Leon Manus, who flees into
exile. The three are replaced by Aristide partisans.
• Nov. 26, 2000 -- In Haiti's most recent vote, Aristide wins another five-year
presidential term in an election boycotted by all opposition parties because of
the manipulated May parliamentary elections. The ballot lists six other
candidates, all unknown. Officially, the turnout hits 60.5 percent and Aristide
wins 91.1 percent of the votes cast. Less partisan estimates put voter turnout
at 5-15 percent.