27637: Hermantin(News)Few recent elections have been truly free (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2006


VOTING HISTORY
Few recent elections have been truly free
The majority of recent Haitian elections have been marked by fraud and 
manipulation.
BY DON BOHNING
Special to The Miami Herald

A look at the 15 Haitian elections since World War II shows that only two were 
not determined by fraud, manipulation or some other form of chicanery or was 
accompanied by such chaos that the results were discredited.

A third, the 1995 presidential election of René Préval -- the front-runner in 
Tuesday's balloting -- came close but was plagued by low voter turnout and 
claims of irregularities.

Here's a summary of some of the more significant recent elections or 
referendums:

• Oct. 8, 1950 -- Haiti's first direct presidential election is won by Col. 
Paul Magloire, chief of the military junta that toppled the previous president.

• April 30, 1961 -- President Franc¸ois ''Papa Doc'' Duvalier calls 
parliamentary elections, puts his name at the bottom of the ballot and declares 
himself the winner of a new six-year term with an official tally of 1,320,748 
votes in favor and none against.

• Jan. 31, 1971 -- Duvalier calls a referendum to ratify his son, Jean-Claude, 
as his successor. The official vote is 2,391,916 in favor and none against.

• March 29, 1987 -- In the first vote since the toppling of the Duvalier family 
dictatorship the previous year, voters overwhelmingly approve a new Haitian 
constitution in a vote free of violence and irregularities.

• Nov. 29, 1987 -- The first presidential elections of the post-Duvalier era 
are canceled amid a bloodbath aided by the military rulers who succeeded 
Jean-Claude Duvalier. Gunmen and machete-wielding goons kill more than 30 
people, 14 of them at a polling station.

• Jan. 17, 1988 -- Leslie Manigat, a prominent political scientist exiled under 
the Duvaliers, is elected president in voting run by military coup leaders. 
While the election was not openly fraudulent, four leading candidates boycott 
the election and both its credibility and outcome are widely questioned.

• Dec. 16, 1990 -- Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins the presidency with more than 67 
percent of the vote in what is widely accepted as the first truly democratic 
election in nearly 200 years of Haitian independence.

• Dec. 17, 1995 -- Préval, prime minister under Aristide, wins the presidency 
with 88 percent of the vote among a field of 14. This comes close to being a 
reasonably free and fair election.

• May 21, 2000 -- In the most controversial vote since the Duvalier era, 
Aristide's Lavalas Family claims to have won 18 of 19 Senate seats. The head of 
the Organization of American States's observer mission calls the announced 
results neither ''accurate nor fair.'' Three members of the Haitian electoral 
commission resign in protest, including its chief, Leon Manus, who flees into 
exile. The three are replaced by Aristide partisans.

• Nov. 26, 2000 -- In Haiti's most recent vote, Aristide wins another five-year 
presidential term in an election boycotted by all opposition parties because of 
the manipulated May parliamentary elections. The ballot lists six other 
candidates, all unknown. Officially, the turnout hits 60.5 percent and Aristide 
wins 91.1 percent of the votes cast. Less partisan estimates put voter turnout 
at 5-15 percent.