Haiti’s Election Debacle
Expectations heading into Haiti’s elections on November 28 were modest at best. The country’s notoriously opaqueConseil Électoral Provisoire (CEP) once again excluded the country’s most influential political party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating in elections, as well as a number of other parties and individual candidates. Procedurally, the devastation from January’s earthquake and the ongoing cholera epidemic seriously complicated efforts to register voters and establish an adequate number of polling stations. While many in Haiti and abroad had held out hope that it would still be possible for the election to proceed in an orderly and peaceful manner, such expectations were unfortunately dashed by widespread reports of voter confusion, violence, and fraud.
Reactions to the elections varied: some groups claimed that the balloting was valid despite reports of irregularities, while others decried the entire process as fraudulent and illegitimate. International observation groups were faced with several undesirable alternatives as they assessed the elections, and their official conclusion turned out to be a highly controversial compromise between practical and ethical concerns.
In the days leading up to Haiti’s elections, the instability of the country’s democratic process became tragically apparent. An attack on the delegation of INITE party members (the political vehicle of Haiti’s outgoing President Renee Préval) and its presidential candidate Jude Célestin resulted in the deaths of two Haitians, allegedly at the hands of supporters of opposition candidate Charles Henry Baker.1 Later, another person was killed in an apparent assassination attempt on Michel Martelly, who, at the time, was polling third behind Mirlande Manigat and Célestin.2
Blog de Octavio Islas 