27911: Lemieux-News-Haitis fragmented politics (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

jd lemieux  lxhaiti@yahoo.com


Financial Times.com
February 19: Haiti?s fragmented politics
> Edited by Richard Lapper
> Published: February 19 2006 21:08 | Last
updated: February 19 2006 21:08
> >
Haiti?s election
The process that lead to the election last week
of René Préval, Haiti?s new president, last week
was complicated enough. But politics in the
western hemisphere?s poorest and most socially
divided country are not going to get simpler any
time soon. After the extended delays in the
count, the electoral council will announce
results of parliamentary elections ? held
simultaneously with the presidential contest two
weeks ago ? towards the end of this week.
Fragmented politics in which local factors play
an important element and complicated electoral
rules mean most of the contests for 99 lower
house and 30 senate seats will be decided after a
second round, theoretically scheduled to take
place on 19 March. So it is anyone?s guess how
the new legislature will look. Mr Préval?s Lespwa
party was contesting only 19 senate and 58 lower
house positions. All this means that building a
political consensus to take Haiti forward in
critical areas like the economy, security and the
reform of the courts will be more important than
ever. The good thing is that Mr Préval has
already been making overtures to the leaders of
other parties. It is also helpful that the
president-elect is a milder and less strident
personality than his former colleague
ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.




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