25318: Hermantin(news)Obstacles abound in Haiti vote (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2005


HAITI
Obstacles abound in Haiti vote
More than a year after Haiti's elected president was forced out during an armed 
revolt, officials are now facing daunting obstacles to prepare for elections in 
the fall.
BY JOE MOZINGO
jmozingo@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Facing persistent doubts and a litany of obstacles, 
international and Haitian technocrats are scrambling to prepare for elections 
this fall in a country still convulsing with political violence after an armed 
revolt last year.

The electoral headquarters has been hit by a grenade and machine-gun fire. The 
nation's electoral council is paralyzed by infighting. A campaign to register 
up to 4.5 million eligible voters has signed up only 113,000 in a month and a 
half.

And violence in the capital is causing such bloodshed that the U.S. State 
Department's top official for the Americas, Roger Noriega, has planned a hasty 
visit to Port-au-Prince today to assess the situation. On Tuesday, his boss, 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the U.N. peacekeepers here need to 
boost their 7,400-member force to ``really get ready, so that these elections 
are a success.''

Yet even if the security situation does somehow improve, a thunderhead of 
political animosity looming over Haiti could douse the whole electoral effort.

A CREDIBLE VOTE?

The only party with proven widespread support among Haiti's abjectly poor 
majority is the Lavalas Family of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who 
fled the country during the revolt in February 2004. Furious at his ouster, the 
party has so far refused to participate in the electoral process, threatening 
to undermine the legitimacy of the elections.

That could be a devastating blow to the country's hopes for political 
stability, and an embarrassing turn for Washington, which refused to rush to 
Aristide's help during the revolt and then propped up the interim government 
that replaced him.

''The U.S. believes strongly that elections not only need to take place this 
year, but will take place,'' U.S. Ambassador James B. Foley told The Herald 
last month.

`LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE'

U.N. and Haitian election officials say they plan to hold local, parliamentary 
and presidential elections as scheduled, in three rounds between Oct. 9 and 
Dec. 18. As Haiti's first elections since Aristide won the presidency in 2000, 
they will see some 10,000 posts up for grabs, and at least 95 parties 
registered.

''It's a logistical nightmare, but it's moving ahead, it's happening,'' said 
Gérard Le Chevallier, a Salvadoran citizen and chief of electoral assistance 
for the U.N. Mission in Haiti.

At an expected total cost of $61 million -- pledged by international donors -- 
officials plan to open more than 600 voting centers in even the most isolated 
villages, miles from any road.

But the European Union is holding up nearly $10 million until the Provisional 
Electoral Council pulls itself together after it fell into disarray when its 
president resigned in November. Just last week, the council's operations chief 
said the group had no functioning administration and would, at earliest, be 
able to hold the first election in December.

Le Chevallier said the council is resolving its problems. And Elizabeth Spehar 
of the Organization of American States, which is running the registration 
campaign, said the effort should quickly accelerate as new registration centers 
open up. While only 26 of the 424 needed centers have been opened, she said she 
expects a majority to be up and running by the end of the month.

INSTABILITY A THREAT

But many fear Haiti, perennially battered by political violence, is simply not 
stable enough to hold free and fair ballots.

Pro-Aristide gangs are openly fighting U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police in 
the capital's sprawling seaside slum of Cité Soleil. Common crime is surging, 
particularly kidnappings and carjackings.

''Elections are a dangerous thing. If they are poorly handled, it could be a 
disaster,'' said Robert Fatton Jr., a Haiti expert and political professor at 
the University of Virginia.

Critically, Lavalas' refusal to take part in the process on the grounds that 
its supporters are being summarily shot or arrested by police poses a 
significant threat to whether the elections are seen as credible. The party is 
using the same tactic that Aristide's opponents used in 2000, when they 
boycotted the presidential election and largely convinced the international 
community that his victory was fraudulent.

Now the interim government, backed by those rivals, has done little to bring 
Lavalas into the process. Most notably, Haitian authorities have refused 
demands -- by Lavalas, the United Nations and even their U.S. benefactors -- to 
release Aristide's jailed prime minister, Yvon Neptune.

He was arrested nearly 11 months ago on charges that he orchestrated a massacre 
of political opponents. He has been on an on-and-off hunger strike, but so far 
prosecutors have not publicly presented any evidence against him.

Human rights groups say Neptune is simply the public face of a broader trend in 
which hundreds of lesser-known Aristide supporters are locked up. In sharp 
contrast, Haitian judges have exonerated dozens of military and paramilitary 
officers accused of killing Aristide supporters during the 1991 military coup 
that sent him into exile for three years.

''That is certainly not the way you're going to draw even moderate Lavalas 
people into elections,'' Fatton said. ``And it's inconceivable that you have 
credible elections without Lavalas.''

LAVALAS SPLIT, TOO

But Lavalas is increasingly divided between hard-liners and those who have 
expressed interest in moving forward with the elections as candidates from 
other parties begin to emerge.

Evans Paul, a one-time confidant of Aristide and Port-au-Prince mayor who 
became one of his most vocal opponents, said the lack of a dominant party 
leaves a fair and open playing field never seen before in Haiti.

''There is no illegitimate force to violate the election like in the past,'' 
said Paul, secretary general of the United Democratic Convention. ``The police 
are still too weak to do that. . . . There is no political party that can do 
it.''

ELECTIONS CRUCIAL

He and others say it is crucial that Haiti elect its own government and free 
itself of foreign control by U.N. peacekeepers, the third occupation in the 
past century.

''We have to have elections,'' said Guy Philippe, a likely presidential 
candidate and one of the leaders of the revolt that pushed Aristide out. ``If 
we don't, it will be chaos and more international intervention.''

On a recent morning at a registration center in the suburb of Carrefour, 
Senatus Gerald, 21, was in line before it opened. Like many Haitians, he wants 
the new national ID card that comes with registration. And he wants to vote.

''I would like for the young people to have a chance,'' he said. ``The country 
needs to change. I just hope security tightens up.''

Le Chevallier, the U.N. elections advisor, notes elections have been held in 
far more violent environments, from the Middle East and Africa to his native 
Central America.

''People were shooting at the lines in Salvador,'' he said. ``There was 
shooting here in 1986 and 1987. Democracy is a gradual process.''