#2620: CIP/SICRAD on the Elections (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>


Race Against Time Until the Elections

HAÏTI-CORRESPONDANCE serie 2 / No 52 / 28 fevrier 2000

E-bdo d'actualite haitienne et de perspective democratique et populaire
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Less than a month before its March 19 deadline the elections commission 
is in a race against time. The CEP has decided to extend the period for 
registration to March 3, eight days more before closing the registration 
offices (BI).

This decision was taken to allow for the registration of all the voters 
who want to register, the commission said. Demonstrations continue day 
by day pressuring the commission to create enough registration offices 
in the most populous parts of the capital, the provincial cities, and
the rural areas.

A new delivery of electoral material was received but is not available. 
The registration problems continue.

Also, registration has not begun everywhere in the Anse d'Hainaut in the 
Grand Anse. Two meetings of the CEP last week failed to find a way for 
the leaders of the Concertation Space (l'Espace de Concertation) and the 
coalition called Effort and Solidarity to Build a National Popular
Alternative, Effort et Solidarite pour Construire une Alternative
Nationale Populaire (ESCANP), to unblock the process in this region.
These are two parties involved in the electoral conflict in this
jurisdiction.

But this was still "one step forward" to bring them all to the table,
said Carlo Sainristil, the CEP spokesman.

The bishop of Port-au-Prince, Msr. Serge Miot, insisted that all the
actors work together to resolve the Anse d'Hainaut problem.

Despite the problems at the registration level the March 19 vote is
being actively readied. A lot of eleven thousand bundles of ballots were 
delivered on February 24 to the CEP by the United Nations Development
Program.