Politics
Haiti working towards credible elections this year
After 3 years of delayed polls and simmering political unrest, Haiti’s electoral machinery is finally grinding into gear.
By the end of the year, Haiti ought to have a newly elected president, parliament and local municipal governments.
Haitians have not been able to vote in an election since popular singer Michel Martelly won the presidency in the 2011 poll.
Since then, presidential nominees have replaced elected mayors in many towns and the Senate and House of Representatives have shrunk away. But the long delay has not dampened the ambition of Haiti’s political elite.
More than 120 parties have registered to take part in the elections. Not all will field candidates for all the races, but the sheer number of factions will add to the challenge facing organizers in the country.
“We cannot restrict a citizen’s right to form a political party,” sighed Mosler Georges, executive director of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). But we have to admit it is going to difficult in logistical terms.”
The numbers underline Haiti’s challenge.
Between mayors, town councilors, deputies, senators and the president, more than 6,000 seats are up for grabs in races spread across three polling days on August 9, October 25 and December 27.
It should not have been such a marathon. Under Haiti’s young constitution, most of the contests should have been fought months or even years ago at well-spaced intervals.
But things are rarely easy in Haiti. Martelly’s camp and the divided but determined opposition have been at daggers drawn for years, and their stand-off disrupted the program.
Parliament accused the president of trying to stuff the electoral commission with his supporters. The presidency accused lawmakers of delaying a vote on a key electoral law.
As months went by without any votes, local councilors and national lawmakers saw their mandates expire with no replacements named.
On January 12, the national parliament fell into disuse, with too few members to form a quorum to vote on legislation. Under pressure from the street, where opposition demonstrations were getting louder, Martelly issued a March 2 decree – there would at last be elections.
Pretenders to the presidency are supposed to register their intent during the second week of May, but already dozens of names are circulating.
“If we have 50 or 60 presidential candidates, you can just imagine how long the ballot paper will be,” Georges told reporters.
Long indeed. Alongside each name on the ballot there must be the candidate’s photo, campaign logo and party registration number.
Candidate Number One will be easy to find at the top of the ballot, he explained, and: “Ten is Lionel Messi’s shirt number.”
Argentine footballers may be better known to Haitians than their own leaders, but there is a greater challenge facing poll organizers: Money.
Haiti, already lagging behind its neighbors because of its brutal colonial history under France and recent years of dictatorship and rebellion, was devastated by a 2010 earthquake.
The unprecedented disaster killed 200,000 people and demolished much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The World Bank estimated the damage as the equivalent of 120 percent of annual gross domestic product (GDP).
Haiti has been slowly rebuilding, but much of the international aid promised in the wake of quake either never arrived or was spent on short-term disaster relief efforts rather than sustained development.
The country suffered another setback when a cholera epidemic, widely and credibly blamed on the poor hygiene of a UN peacekeeping unit, killed thousands more.
Now Haiti needs to pay to organize elections.
The CEP estimates the cost at US$60 million. Haiti has found US$13.8 million itself and donors have offered US$24 million more leaving a shortfall of around a quarter of the cost.
Source: AFP