27648: lemieux:News:Time:Voters Push for Change in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

JD Lemieux

Thursday, Feb. 09, 2006
Voters Push for Change in Haiti
A successful election signals a population
desperate for new direction, but can a familar
cast of politicians deliver?
By KATHIE KLARREICH/PORT-AU-PRINCE
The winner of Haiti's presidential elections this
week has yet to be announced, but the poll is
being hailed as a success?a turnout of over 50%,
the lack of organized violence and absence of
widespread fraud signal a widespread commitment
among Haitians to transform their political
landscape. The turnout and orderly running of
Haiti's most expensive ($75 million) may have
surprised a skeptical international community,
but it was no surprise to the Haitian people.
Since last September, they have seen the election
postponed four times as a result of the
incompetence of the electoral council and a
bungling, ineffective interim government muscled
in by the United States after the forced
departure of Jean Bertrand Aristide two years
ago. Although most of the 802 polling stations
were ill-prepared for the hundreds of thousands
of people who began lining the streets before
dawn, by the time the sun was overhead queues
were moving steadily and voters were proudly
displaying their thumbs, stained by markers upon
their exit from the polling booth.

The most common refrain among voters was a call
for change, even though the government has
changed hands more than a dozen times since the
fall of the Duvalier dictatorship 20 years
ago?and has seen 35 coups since it declared
independence in 1804. The only democratically
elected president to have completed his term of
office is René Garcia Préval, today's
presidential frontrunner?initial results
tabulated in and around the capital give him a
60% lead. For the last five years, the 63-year
old agronomist has been astutely observing the
political scene from the quiet of his rural
hometown, Marmelade. His decision to run under a
new political party signaled his independence
from Aristide's Lavalas Family party and marked
his autonomy from the man many had deemed his
political twin. At the same time, Préval has
profited from the support of Aristide partisans,
many of whom are armed gang members that live in
the poorest sections of the capital. Polls show
Préval leading the field of 33 candidates, but if
no candidate achieves a majority, the top two
finishers will contest a runoff on March 19.

The challenge facing the winner will be to create
a government acceptable not only his own
supporters, but also those of the losers. That's
the only way the election can mark the beginning
of a political healing process.

"You can't govern in Haiti alone," added Mark
Schneider of the International Crisis Group. "You
need sufficient cooperation from the losers so
that parliament can function and the government
can deal with the fundamental problems that makes
Haiti the last on every list of human security
issues in the hemisphere." Literacy and
employment are less than 50 percent and potable
water is available to only 25 percent of Haiti's
8 million-plus people. The annual income is $390
per person, less than it was in 1995 allowing for
inflation.

The level of polarization afflicting Haiti today
makes national reconciliation a tall order. Some
presidential candidates have already made it
clear that should Préval win, they will not
support him. Most aggressive is businessman
Charles Henri Baker, running second in the
opinion polls. Pointing to his rival's 1996-2001
tenure, he said, "Nothing positive was done for
the country under his leadership. I will watch
him closely. If things go the democratic way,
great, but if he is back to his own ways, we're
the opposition." Another leading contender,
75-year-old political science professor Leslie
Manigat, says Haiti is at a turning point. "It
needs someone who can build, create unity,? he
says, adding that Préval is not that man.

Rooting out the corruption that pervades every
level of state administration is an equally
important priority, because it has left the
international donor community reluctant to
deliver more than 10 percent, thus far, of its
2004 pledge of $1.2 billion in development aid.
Still, foreign governments say they'll support a
new government that demonstrates a commitment to
inclusiveness, transparency, and disarmament of
the gangs that rule many urban areas.

The greatest problem facing any new leadership in
Haiti may lie in convincing Haitians and their
friends abroad that things are going to change
for the better. "Each time there is a new
government we say the same things, then support
[for Haiti from abroad] appreciably drops,"
admits Elizabeth Spehar, who has been working
with the Special Mission and Electoral Technical
Assistance Program of the OAS in Haiti. "We dump
money into elections, then get distracted so that
every ten years there's another crisis. The
election is the big mamou. It's the starting
point, but if you just leave it at that you're
doomed."



Copyright © 2006 Time Inc


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