26276: Hermantin(News)Observers fear bid to rig Haiti's November election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Sep. 17, 2005


HAITI
Observers fear bid to rig Haiti's November election
U.N. and Haitian officials are worried that the nation's presidential election 
will be mired by tampering and fraud.
BY JOE MOZINGO
jmozingo@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - U.N. and Haitian electoral officials say that mounting reports 
of fraud and a lack of transparency could undermine the legitimacy of elections 
in November and the hopes of restoring democracy in this troubled nation.

''The stage is being set for something horribly wrong to happen,'' said Patrick 
Féquiere, a member of the government's Provisional Electoral Council who 
regularly criticizes his colleagues.

United Nations officials are more cautious in their statements but echo his 
concerns about a lack of transparency while critical jobs deep in the electoral 
bureaucracy go to people who might rig the results of the presidential and 
legislative elections.

''When you're transparent, you have no choice but to be honest,'' said Gérard 
Le Chevallier, the chief of electoral assistance for the U.N. peacekeeping 
mission in Haiti. ``The problem is, this Electoral Council is not perceived as 
being transparent enough.''

The nine-member council was set up to organize new elections after President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster during an armed rebellion last year. Each 
member represents a political party or sector of society, but Aristide's 
Lavalas Family Party has refused to appoint its envoy and until recently was 
boycotting the entire election process.

Most international observers agree that Lavalas -- the only party with proven 
support among Haiti's destitute majority -- must be included in the election 
for the subsequent government to have legitimacy in the eyes of most Haitians. 
But after the rebellion many of its leaders went into exile and others have 
been imprisoned, harassed or even killed by police.

On a political level, even U.S. and U.N. officials concede that the interim 
government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, backed by Washington and some 
8,000 U.N. peacekeepers, is deeply biased against Lavalas.

But the Electoral Council insists that it is working feverishly to create fair 
and transparent balloting on Nov. 20. Runoffs are set for Jan. 3 if no 
candidate wins more than 50 percent in the first round.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted a meeting on the general topic 
of the Haitian elections Wednesday with diplomats from several countries that 
have contributed to the peacekeeping force, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi 
Annan is planning another today in New York.

At least a dozen presidential candidates were registered on Thursday -- the 
last day allowed -- from Dumarsais Simeus, a rich Haitian businessman living in 
Texas, to former President René Preval and former Prime Minister Marc Bazin.

Not allowed to register so far has been the Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, a Catholic 
priest and well known Haitian rights activist when he lived in Miami who seems 
to be the Lavalas favorite. Election officials say he must register in person 
-- but he's in jail, under investigation for the murder of a journalistHe says 
his detention is political.

Rosemond Pradel, the Election Council's director general, said it will not 
block Lavalas from running, and has invited all types of Haitian and 
international organizations to observe the electoral process. ''Everything we 
do is by the rules,'' he said. ``People have complained that we are too 
transparent.''

Féquiere disagrees.

''There is a definite conspiracy by a group of council members to control the 
institution by planting their own people inside,'' said Féquiere, a businessman 
who represents several minority parties on the council. ``Most of the 
corruption does not take place in the central office. It's out there in the 
field.''

In memos to his colleagues and to Interim President Boniface Alexandre, 
Féquiere detailed numerous allegations in which officials subverted the process 
of awarding jobs to candidates who score highest on exams.

In one dated June 13, he demanded the council investigate allegations that exam 
results for data entry operators in southwestern Haiti were falsified. ''Those 
who manipulate examination results today are the same ones who will attempt to 
manipulate election results tomorrow,'' he wrote.

In June, U.N. advisors heard allegations that candidates for a local elections 
office in the Artibonite Valley had obtained the questionnaire ahead of time. 
The alleged cheaters were ''affiliated'' with a regional party whose whose 
leader is Youri Latortue, a nephew of the prime minister, head of his security 
and possible Senate candidate.

Pradel said there is no proof of this allegation and called Féquiere ``kind of 
a crazy man who says whatever he wants.''

All in all, he said reports of fraud are relatively minor in the grand scheme 
of the effort: building an entirely new elections apparatus from scratch, 
registering more than 2.1 million voters so far, and holding an election for up 
to 9,000 political posts in a turbulent, mountainous country with few roads and 
working phone lines and scant electricity.

Several months ago, few Haitians believed it would really happen this year. But 
as the Organization of American States' effort to register voters finally got 
moving this summer after weeks of faltering, those doubts have diminished.

Now the question has turned from one of technical feasibility to one of 
quality: Will this election be viewed as free and fair?

According to officials involved in the preparations, U.N. representatives had 
to pressure the council to give Lavalas, which fell into disarray following 
Aristide's departure, time to gather the 5,000 signatures required to register 
for the elections.

Several Lavalas leaders recently declared their presidential candidate would be 
Jean-Juste, deemed a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Lavalas 
leaders see his imprisonment, as well as that of untold numbers of other 
Aristide supporters, as blatant political persecution and many are urging 
members to boycott the elections until they are released.

But other Lavalas leaders are preparing for the ballot, fearing that they will 
suffer further if their voice is not heard at election time.