27788: Haiti-Progres (News) This Week in Haiti 23:49 2/15/2006 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                     HAITI PROGRES
          "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                February 15 - 21, 2006
                   Vol. 23, No. 49



A "SELECTION" TAKES SHAPE
"This CEP cannot carry out honest elections!"

This was the cry heard in the streets of Port-au-Prince on Feb. 13 as
hundreds of thousands poured out to protest what Provisional Electoral
Council (CEP) member Pierre Richard Duchemin called "a certain level of
manipulation" of election results.

It was also the warning HaVti ProgrPs issued in the weeks leading up to
the elections, or what we called and what is now materializing, the
"selections."

The National Popular Party (PPN) had repeatedly taken to the airwaves to
advise the Haitian people not to take part in the farce being concocted
by Haiti's bourgeoisie, Macoutes, and US/UN occupation authorities so as
not to lend it any legitimacy. It is inevitable that these putschist
forces would tamper with the vote to steal any election from the Haitian
people, the PPN argued.

While many Haitians took note of the PPN's prediction, they wanted to
test it. They came out in the hundreds of thousands to vote for
presidential candidate René Préval, a former prime minister and
president, and his Lespwa party. Washington was delighted with the
turn-out. Now the Haitian people are attesting to the justice of the PPN
's prediction.

Vote manipulation, it now seems, has reduced Préval's percentage to less
than 50% of the vote - 48.7% with just over 90% of the vote counted -
which would force a run-off between him and runner-up, former President
Leslie Manigat, with 11.8%.

At that point, "all" the 31 other candidates, if we are to believe
sweatshop magnate Andy Apaid, would close ranks behind Manigat and
"defeat" Préval in another rigged match. This was also the scenario
foretold by another bourgeois power broker, Reginald Boulos, before Feb.
7.

How has the vote manipulation been carried out? Many point to the vast
number of supposedly "null" (or unclear) votes - about 148,000 or 7.5%
of the nationwide vote - and blank ballots - about 85,000 or 4.7% of the
vote. In the Nippes Department, the CEP claims that almost 14% of the
ballots were blank and about 12% in the Center Department. CEP member
Patrick FéquiPre has called the blank ballot figures "suspect." It is
hard to imagine someone standing on line for hours and hours and then
neglecting to fill out their ballot.

There were also numerous cases of ballot stuffing, in which
representatives of Manigat - one of them armed - and of second runner-up
Charles Baker were arrested.

One must also wonder if some of the results being presented on the CEP's
website (www.cep-ht.org) were not simply fabricated. Take for instance
the results in Môle St. Nicolas, one of the most remote corners of
northwest Haiti. Are we really to believe that 30 of its 7,900 voters
(as of Feb. 13 at 12:25 p.m.) cast their ballot for Joel Borgella
(OLAHH), a vanity candidate who lived more than 30 years outside of
Haiti, whose main claim to fame is bankrolling the suburban Long Island
Macoute radio station, Radio Tropicale. The exact same number of Môle
St. Nicolas residents voted for equally obscure candidates Bonivert
Claude (PSR) and Nicolas Evans (URN). Meanwhile, exactly 24 in the same
area voted for Marc Bazin ("Lavalas"), and 24 for Turneb Delpé (PNDPH),
and 24 for Charles Poisset Romain (FRONTCIPH). In fact, in almost all of
the provinces, one found most of the 25 or so completely unknown
candidates receiving between 40 and 10 votes. Is it not strange that in
the rural counties, in particular, there was never a case of the unknown
candidates receiving zero votes? Could this have been a way for the CEP
to boost to 23% the votes for "other candidates" who trail the supposed
five leaders: Préval, Manigat, Baker, Chavannes Jeune and Luc Mesadieu?

Some protestors said that the CEP was not even abiding by its own
Internet reports. "Préval himself complained on Sunday that a
computer-generated graphic on the electoral council's Web site had him
at 52% of the vote at the time the director-general of the council was
telling the media that Préval only had 49%," Reuters reported Feb. 13.
Why the discrepancy? A computer lag, the CEP now claims. It takes less
that five minutes to update a webpage, however. Surely some of the $80
million spent on this fabulously expensive and disorganized "selection"
went to such talent.

Of course, the CEP may have used any combination of the scenarios
described above. One day, the story will come out. For the time being,
the masses are mobilized to thwart a "selection."

But the Empire's forces are mobilizing also. The MINUSTAH chief, Juan
Gabriel ValdPs, has been suggesting that Haiti will need to be made a
"trusteeship" of the United Nations if the elections don't go well.
Radio Kiskeya's Lilianne Pierre-Paul has called for the UN to establish
just such a "protectorate" in the event of a Préval win. MINUSTAH troops
have begun firing on demonstrators, killing at least two and wounding
four as of Feb. 13. A Jordanian soldier was also killed.

Meanwhile, Prensa Latina reports that over 800 U.S. Marines have
deployed near Barahona in the Dominican Republic. "According to the US
military command and the city authorities, the foreign troops came to
Barahona to build four polyclinics starting on February 21," the Cuban
press agency reports. But Father Frank Feliz, a local priest questioned
"why 'such social work' is accompanied by a large amount of war
materials, which is being stockpiled at a camp the US military have put
up at the headquarters of the 5th Army Infantry Brigade in this town,"
Prensa Latina reported.

Barahona is of course just a three hour drive from Port-au-Prince by car
, and a lot shorter by helicopter. Is this preparation for a U.S.
invasion?

Washington has been very undiplomatic of late. A State Department
spokesman said this week that the Bush administration "would not
welcome" President Aristide returning to Haiti on the invitation of the
election's victor. U.S. Chargé d'affaires Timothy Carney has been
sticking close to Préval. Carney and a U.S. Embassy vehicle convoy
delivered the candidate to his sister's house for a press conference and
meetings on Feb. 13. Was the escort to provide security for Préval or
more threats?

On February 14, Préval addressed the nation, saying that his party was
"sure of having won in the first round" and was "convinced there was
either massive fraud or gross errors, we don't know which, that have
tainted the electoral process."

Saying that "the Haitian people are frustrated and have the right to
demonstrate," Préval called on them to not destroy private property. He
also warned: "If they publish these results as they are, we will contest
them and if Lespwa contests them, the Haitian people will contest them."

In the face of this threat, a new tripartite commission has been formed.
A representative of the de facto executive, of the CEP and of the Lespwa
party will have to jointly approve final election results. It is a
recipe for even greater confusion and intrigue.

Getting a clear and accurate picture of the voting fraud committed will
prove difficult. Just after Préval spoke, thousands of ballots, most
cast for Préval, were found scattered and partially burned at Titanyen,
the infamous dump just north of the capital. Préval's supporters were
outraged. Protest continues as we go to press. Unconfirmed reports say
up to four gas stations in Port-au-Prince have been set ablaze Tuesday
night.

Whatever unfolds in the days and weeks ahead, one thing is sure: the
Haitian people are not going to be suckered into voting in rigged
occupation elections again. Any run-off election must be universally
boycotted. At this point, elections can only be held after all exiles,
including President Aristide, return, all political prisoners are
released, and the foreign troops leave Haitian soil. Only when the
country's constitutional government and sovereignty are restored, can
free and fair elections be held. Until then, the people can only expect
one deception after another.



PREVAL SUPPORTERS PARALYZE HAITI'S CAPITAL, VALIDITY OF ELECTIONS IN
DOUBT
by the Haiti Information Project

Ten of thousands of supporters of Haitian presidential candidate Rene
Garcia Preval paralyzed Port-au-Prince on Monday with demonstrations
denouncing Haiti's Feb. 7 elections as fraudulent. The demonstrators
erected makeshift barricades at all major roads and thoroughfares. Acrid
black smoke rose above the capital as demonstrators set tires ablaze to
block cars from passing through busy city intersections.

"They already stole our democracy once by kidnapping our president, now
they want to steal democracy from us a second time," screamed Abner
Dorelien, a 31 year-old unemployed auto mechanic. "We won't let them get
away with it."

The day of protest was highlighted by a takeover in Pétion-Ville of the
posh Hotel Montana, currently home to the press headquarters of Haiti's
electoral council. Most foreign journalists stay at the Montana where
they spend more on a room and amenities in a day than the average
Haitian makes in a year.

Thousands of protesters swept into the hotel, many jumping into the
swimming pool as U.N. security guards and Haitian police stood watching
helplessly. "I never swam in a fancy swimming pool like this!!" shouted
a young man from the slum of Cité Soleil as he and nearly a hundred
others frolicked in the warm water. Most wore t-shirts or carried signs
bearing Préval's image.

"I can't believe how they are letting them run all over the place like
this," a Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel photographer was overheard saying.
"What are they [the U.N.] doing?"

Haiti has experienced a period of unprecedented chaos since the forced
ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004. An
unelected and U.S.-installed interim regime has been accused of waging a
campaign of terror against Aristide supporters for the past two years
including summary executions, killing unarmed protestors and detaining
hundreds of political prisoners.

U.N. forces have also been accused of propping up the unpopular and
increasingly brutal government of de facto Prime Minister Gérard
Latortue and de facto President Alexandre Boniface by force of arms. The
Haitian population increasing views the U.N. troops as military
occupiers rather than peacekeepers.

Tensions rose in Haiti after the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP),
drawn entirely from political sectors hostile to Préval's Lespwa party,
failed to announce election results last Tuesday as promised. Early
returns showed Préval with a commanding lead that hovered well over the
50% threshold needed to win the elections in the first round. But recent
figures released by the CEP shows Préval's percentage dropping to 48.7%,
which would force a run-off.

The elections were already tainted. Vote rigging against Préval
occurred, protestors say, when many polling stations changed locations
and lacked accurate or complete voter lists. Polling stations serving
predominately pro-Préval communities opened 3-4 hours late while areas
expected to support his opponents opened on time, with voters there
reporting few if any difficulties in casting their ballots. Thousands of
people were forced to travel for hours by foot to several polling
stations in search of their name on the electoral rolls. The
government-run television station, Télévision Nationale d'HaVti (TNH),
announced changes at the last minute.

Evel Fanfan, the President of the Association of Students for the Rule
of Law in Haiti (AUMOHD), a respected human rights organization based in
Port-au-Prince, described the process as "an electoral coup d'etat."

"At the voting center at the hospital, Lapaix, located at Delmas 33,
people crowded by the thousands but there was wholesale disorder, no
list of names posted as announced by the Electoral Commission and the
election law, no directions," Fanfan said. "It was a complicated and
unaccountable situation. The Electoral Commission without explanation
transferred the voting center for Cité Soleil to Area 2004 [at the old
military airport], with more than 80 voting booths for 400 voters each,
putting 3200 voters in a space designed only for 1000 people. It was the
Tower of Babel, a total confusion by voters with cards in their hands
searching in vain for their names. The centers in Pétion-Ville were well
organized. The lists of names were posted. There were police officers
and Electoral Commission officers on-site to assist the people of this
rich area."

As if that were not enough, there are now allegations of uncounted tally
sheets being discarded at the CEP's headquarters and tampering by the
CEP "executive director" Jacques Bernard. Two members of the CEP,
Patrick FéquiPre and Pierre Richard Duchemin, have already public
charged Bernard with fraud.

Large demonstrations of Préval supporters threw up more barricades on
Tuesday. Préval also gave a press conference asking his supporters to
"continue demonstrating against the fraud" even as U.N. officials and
the international community continued to laud the Feb. 7 elections as
the best organized democratic elections in Haitian history.



COUNTING SOME OF THE VOTES IN HAITI
by Brian Concannon, Jr.

Haiti's elections on February 7 went well enough that the post-election
vote counting should have been uncontroversial. The turnout was huge,
there was almost no violence, and the people's choice was so clear that
the second place finisher received less than 12% of the vote. But
incredibly, a week later the final results have not been declared, and
the Electoral Council is in disarray. The voters have taken to the
streets to protect their vote, and the clear winner is alleging fraud.

The battle lines have been drawn around the 50% of the total vote that f
ormer President René Préval needs to avoid a runoff election against his
distant nearest challenger. Initial official results and unofficial
reports had Mr. Préval comfortably above that bar, but his official
numbers crept steadily downward over the last week. As of Tuesday
morning, with 90% of the votes counted, Mr. Préval was stuck at 48.7%,
22,586 votes shy of outright victory.

WHAT'S AT STAKE

In a better world, Mr. Préval would be happy to go into a runoff with a
48.7% share, assured that he could attract 1.3% of the voters more
easily than his opponent, Leslie Manigat, could attract 38%. Mr. Manigat
might even save his country time and money by conceding an obviously
futile contest. But this is Haiti, where electoral support does not
always translate into political power. Mr. Préval and his supporters
know that the vote only came close to 50% because the votes of Haiti's
poor- who overwhelmingly voted for Mr. Préval- had been systematically
suppressed through a series of irregularities, from the voter
registration last summer through election day. They draw a line from
this vote suppression through questionable tabulation practices, and see
it pointing towards a second round somehow stolen from them.

Mr. Manigat may have Haiti's history on his side, if not Haiti's voters.
He knows from experience that there are many routes to Haiti's
Presidency, not all of them requiring electoral support. He ran in the
first elections under Haiti's current Constitution, in November 1987,
and was projected to run a distant third at best. But the army and
paramilitaries stopped the voting by firing at voting centers, killing
at least 34 people. Two months later the army ran new elections. The
candidates with democratic convictions called a boycott of the charade,
which the voters supported. But Mr. Manigat, Hubert de Ronceray (who won
less than 1% this year) and one other candidate threw their hats in the
ring, and the army declared Manigat its President.

Last week's election was Haiti's fourth Presidential election since
1990. The previous three- 1990, 1995 and 2000- were all conducted
without serious violence. Each time, the voters delivered a landslide to
the candidate of the Lavalas political movement - no runner-up ever
topped 16% of the vote. But each time a minority in Haiti, usually with
outside support, successfully limited this mandate. President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the victor in the first and third of those
elections, suffered two successful coup d'états, and spent half of his
two terms in exile. President Préval managed to spend his whole term in
office and pass power to an elected successor (the first Haitian
President to do so), but a manufactured political crisis and perpetual
squabbling about the extent of the Lavalas landslides prevented the
seating of a legislature. More important, the crisis successfully
diverted President Préval's energies and attention from the economic and
social development policies he was elected to implement.

Mr. Préval did not run this year under the banner of the Fanmi Lavalas
party, but with a brand-new party, Lespwa (Hope). Fanmi Lavalas
boycotted the elections because the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH)
refused to stop its persecution of the party, which included jailing
dozens of political opponents, attacking anti-IGH protests and mounting
murderous police raids in the poor neighborhoods that were the party's
strongholds.

But Préval's victory was nonetheless delivered by the Lavalas base.
Voters said as much to anyone who would listen as they waited to vote,
afterwards, and in this week's demonstrations. More tellingly, Préval
won his landslide with almost no institutional support or even
campaigning. The Espwa party is brand new, fielding candidates in barely
half of the senatorial races. Préval received almost no formal
endorsements, and did not even speak publicly until the last weeks of
the campaign. He planned very few rallies, and many of these were
cancelled after two events were violently attacked. But despite these
handicaps, he won a landslide because the Lavalas base voted
overwhelmingly for him (candidate Marc Bazin claimed the Lavalas mantle,
but had the support of neither the party's top leadership nor its base,
and won less than 1% of the vote).

PRE-ELECTION VOTE SUPPRESSION

The IGH engaged in a comprehensive program to suppress Lavalas political
activities in the ten months before the elections. Several prominent
politicians were not able to participate, as candidates or activists,
because they were kept in jail illegally, including Haiti's last
constitutional Prime Minister, a former member of the House of Deputies,
the former Minister of the Interior, and dozens of other local officials
and grassroots activists. When Haiti's most prominent dissident, Rev.
Gerard Jean-Juste, was diagnosed with leukemia, it took a massive
campaign, including intervention of top U.S. Republicans, just to obtain
his provisional release for desperately needed treatment.

The voting registration process systematically discouraged poor rural
and urban voters from signing up. Where Haiti's democratic government
provided over 10,000 voter registration centers for elections in 2000,
the IGH installed less than 500. The offices would have been too few and
far between for many voters even if they had been evenly distributed.
But placement was heavily weighted in favor of areas likely to support
the IGH and its allies. Halfway through the registration period, for
example, there were three offices in the upscale suburb of Pétionville,
and the same number in the large and largely roadless Central Plateau
Department. In cities, the poor neighborhoods were the last to get
registration centers, and Cite Soleil, the largest poor neighborhood of
all, never got one.

Complaints and protests forced the IGH to extend the registration period
three times and open additional registration facilities. Eventually over
3.5 million voters registered, about ¾ of the estimated eligible voters.
But we will never know how many voters could not get to a registration
center, or gave up after losing too many precious work days in the
effort. We do know that the registration difficulties disproportionately
impacted the rural and urban poor, who voted overwhelmingly for Préval.

Neither Lavalas nor the Préval campaign was able to effectively engage
in pre-election campaigning. Police repeatedly fired guns at peaceful
pro-Lavalas demonstrations throughout the two years of the IGH's reign.
In January, a pro-government gang destroyed structures erected for a
Préval campaign speech in the town of St. Marc, cancelling the event. No
arrests were made. Violence and threats of violence forced the
cancellation of subsequent events, even the campaign's grand finale the
week before the election.

The IGH had limited the voting centers to 807, which would have been
inadequate even if the elections had run smoothly (Los Angeles County,
with a slightly larger population but only 37% of Haiti's land area and
infinitely better private and public transportation had about 4,400
polling places in November 2005). But by 1 PM on election day, Reuters'
headline read: "Chaos, fraud claims mar Haiti election." Most election
offices opened late and lacked ballots or other materials; many did not
become fully functional until mid-afternoon. Voters arrived at the
designated centers to find the center had been moved at the last minute.
Many who found the center identified on their voting card waited in line
for hours only to be told they could not vote because their names were
not on the list. At some centers, tens of thousands of voters were
crammed into a single building, creating confusion, and in one case a
deadly stampede.

As with the registration deficiencies, the poor bore the lion's share of
the election day problems. The two voting centers for Cite Soleil, both
located well outside the neighborhood, saw the worst. One of the two,
the Carrefour Aviation site, was transferred at the last minute to a
single building where 32,000 voters had to find the right line to wait
in without posted instructions, lists of names or an information center.
Throughout the day, journalists and observers noted over and over that
centers in Pétionville and other wealthy areas were better organized and
equipped.

As with registration, many voters persevered despite the obstacles.
After frustrated would-be voters took to the streets in spontaneous
protests, the IGH made concessions, such as keeping the polls open later
and allowing people with voting cards whose names were not on the local
list to vote in some places. By the end of the day, most voting centers
were operating at a minimal level, and over 60% of registered voters did
vote. But we will never know how many people gave up, because they were
sick or frustrated or needed to get back to their families.

COUNTING SOME OF THE VOTES

After the problems with registration and voting, Mr. Préval's supporters
were pleasantly surprised that the CEP gave him a large lead in initial
reports. On Thursday, the CEP announced that with 22% of the votes
counted, Préval had a commanding lead with 62% of the vote. Mr. Manigat
trailed at 11%, and Charles Henri Baker, in third place, had 6%.
Unofficial reports of the local results from international and Haitian
observers and journalists consistently had Préval far over 50%. But by
Saturday night the Préval's official vote had decreased to 49.61%, and
by Monday it was at 48.7%.

The IGH claims that Préval's decrease was the result of more information
coming in and better calculations. But many questions about the
tabulation process, combined with the efforts to suppress the Lavalas
vote before and during election day, raise doubts about those claims. On
Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Préval claimed that he had proof that he won 54%
of the vote, and that the Electoral Council fraudulently reduced his
number.

The Electoral Council is supposed to be running the counting, but it is
not. Jacques Bernard was appointed "Executive Director" of the Council-
a position not previously recognized in Haitian law- by the Prime
Minister late last year. He is running the show and has kept regular
Council members out of the counting room. Councilor Pierre Richard
Duchemin charges "manipulation," and "an effort to stop people from
asking questions." Another Councilor, Patrick Fequiere, claims that Mr.
Bernard is working without the Council and not telling them where his
information is coming from. The UN Peacekeeping mission was forced to
remove the doors to the tabulation center to prevent Mr. Bernard and his
advisors from acting secretly.

A large number of tally sheets from polling centers are not being
counted. 254 sheets were destroyed, reportedly by gangs from political
parties opposed to Préval. 504 tally sheets reportedly lack the codes
needed to enter them officially. The missing tally sheets probably
represent about 190,000 votes- over 9% of the total votes cast- and
according to the UN, disproportionately affect poor areas that support
Préval.

Electoral officials have also discarded 147,765 votes, over 7% of the
total, as "null." Article 185 of the Electoral Code allows officials to
nullify ballots if they "cannot recognize the intention or political
will of the elector." The Presidential ballots were complicated- 33
candidates, each with a photo, an emblem and the names of the candidate
and the party. Some Haitian voters, unused to filling out forms or
writing, undoubtedly made mistakes-like marking two boxes- that made
determining their choice impossible. But 147,765 voided votes is a lot,
especially when that decision was made by local officials handpicked by
an Electoral Council that had no representation from Lavalas or Lespwa.
Overly strict criterion (such as requiring an "x" to be completely
within a candidate's box), even if neutrally applied, would have a
disproportionate impact on Préval voters, who are more unused to filling
out forms than their better-heeled compatriots, and therefore more
likely to make mistakes.

Another group of votes, 85,290, or 4.6%, are classified as blank
ballots. These votes are actually counted against Préval, because they
are included in the total number of valid votes that provides the
baseline for the 50% threshold. This is a potentially reasonable system,
just unreasonably applied to Haiti. It allows voters to show their
displeasure with all the candidates by voting for no one. It makes sense
in wealthy countries, but it is absurd to think that 85,000 people would
leave their babies, their fields and other work and spend hours walking
or waiting in the tropical heat just to say they did not like any of the
33 candidates. A more likely explanation is that illiterate voters got
confused by the complicated ballots and marked nothing. Again, this
problem would disproportionately affect poor voters likely to vote for
Préval. But even if it did not- if the blank votes were allocated to
candidates based on their percentage of other votes- Préval would clear
50%.

The blank and null ballots combined exceeded Mr. Manigat's vote by
17,000. The rules for blank and null votes are consistent with previous
Haitian elections, so it is hard to call the rules themselves
fraudulent. But the scale of the distortion of the vote caused by these
rules was both foreseeable and preventable. The same problem has arisen
at every election since 1990, most of which were observed by the UN and
the Organization of American States, which were active in preparing the
elections this time around. The distortion could be sharply reduced with
a simple voter education campaign: going into poor neighborhoods,
showing how to mark ballots and giving voters an opportunity to practice
on sample ballots. There was money available for such a program- the
election cost over $70 million dollars, most of it coming from abroad,
more than $30 for every vote cast. The political parties, many of which
represented a fraction of one percent of the electorate, received
generous subsidies. But no concerted effort was made to help the much
larger share of the voters who had demonstrated difficulty with filling
out the ballots.

TAKING THE STREETS

Haiti's voters may be inexperienced in filling out forms, but they have
seen enough stolen elections to qualify as world-class experts in the
field. They can trace the pattern from registration through election day
to the current calculations, and they can see their votes discounted at
every step. They know that they did enough to win according to the rules
of the game, which they believe in. But they know that voting, in Haiti,
is not enough, so they are now out in the streets by the thousands,
erecting barricades, protesting, even occupying the pool at the
luxurious Montana Hotel, where the votes are counted and the journalists
and other expatriates are lodged.

The IGH and the US government have responded by calling on Préval to
call off the protests. He implored his supporters not to damage people
or property, but also recommended that they keep demonstrating until the
IGH stops trying to steal the election. Haiti's voters will undoubtedly
take this recommendation. They have done their job in marking their
ballots, but know that they need to make sure that the IGH counts them.

Brian Concannon Jr., Esquire, directs the Institute for Justice &
Democracy in Haiti, www.ijdh.org, and observed several elections in
Haiti for the Organization of American States.

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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