Haiti elections 2015: OAS and Haitian officials to meet ahead of Oct. 25 presidential vote

The Organization of American States said Monday that a top representative will hold high-level meetings with Haitian officials to support next month’s scheduled first round of presidential voting and the second round of regional elections.

The OAS said it backs holding the first round of presidential elections on October 25, when over 50 candidates are expected to run for Haiti’s top political job. In a statement, the OAS said electoral observation director Gerardo de Icaza traveled Monday to Haiti’s capital to meet with the provisional electoral council and others “in support of the holding of the upcoming elections.”

Next week, other OAS officials will make a preliminary visit to Haiti to ready its observation mission.

Last month, the OAS said its monitors found scattered violence and irregularities in an August 9 legislative first round but not enough to invalidate results. That long overdue round for the entire Chamber of Deputies and two thirds of the Senate was considered a test run for the October 25 elections.

Haitian election council officials have said that the first-round legislative contest will be redone in 25 of Haiti’s 119 constituencies due to the disorder that partially marred voting in August.

Last week, the Vérité party, a major political faction associated with former President Rene Preval, issued a statement saying it would withdraw from the elections. However, some of Vérité’s legislative candidates have told local radio stations they still intend to compete in October. The party’s presidential candidate, Jacky Lumarque, was removed from a list of hopefuls because he had not received a discharge certificate from parliament certifying he had handled government funds appropriately when he ran a state education committee.

Another prominent hopeful, former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, was earlier barred from running for lack of a discharge certificate covering his time in government from 2012 until late 2014.

Source: Associated Press