27822: The new electoral crisis.(Commentary) Math Jay (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jepiem@aol.com

As everyone is witnessing on site or from afar, the situation in post
election Haiti is getting worse everyday. What is going on? An unruly mob has
taken
over the streets, claiming victory for their candidate, even before the
final tally of the votes. In the meantime, there are proven claim that
something

very untoward has taken place, with burned ballots having been found in large
numbers, an electoral council following its intuition and common sense
started  tabulating the votes discarding thousands of blank ballots, then may
be

prodded  by some who realized that they were falling too far behind brandished

legitimately the electoral decree which stupidly said that the blank votes
should be added to the total. Of course the candidate whose electorate is the
most illiterate and unsophisticated suffered the most and the front runner's
percentage dropped below the critical 50% plus one. All you needed then was a
match to start the fire and the populace is not very choosy when it comes  to
matches.In a previous post, I intimated that the CEP and the government  should

not only aknowledge their fault in this deteriorating situation but go  above
their abilities to manage it such a way that the least damage be caused  both
to the process and to the country as a whole. Their first instinct was to
plucked Mr Preval from his retreat in Marmelade so he coould come and clean up

the mess on their behalf. Other sectors, directed or not have been asking Mr
Manigat to pull out and aknowlede Preval the winner. Now if you decide you are
 going to play the democratic game, you can't decide that you want to switch
to a different game because you don't like the score. I support Mr Manigat in
 his decision not to withdraw. As for Mr Preval, his press conference was
nothing  more, nothing less than demagogic double talk.Surely there has been
some
 sheenanegan afoot to rob him of his victory, but there is a civilized way to
 handle this and he even said that there is a legal aspect to this that he
was  going to make sure to handle. Considering the volatility of the situation,

and  the amount of damage already caused and threatening even more, he missed
his  opportunity to show statemanship when instead of telling the mob to go
back  home, he told them to continue demonstrating. In a country like Haiti
when

you  tell the mob to demonstrate you give them a license to loot and burn. He
even  said that he can't be presumptuous enough to be giving orders to the
Haitian  people because they are mature people, order in this case meaning to
tell them  to go back home and wait for the process to take its course. What is

the  Minustah and what are the Police there for? Isn't it to give orders? All
activities are still paralyzed, children don't go to school because everyone
is  afraid. What Mr Preval doesn't seem to realize is that the masses didn't
really  vote for him as he Mr P but rather as a substitute for their annointed
Messiah  Aristide. Had Jean Juste been allowed to run,  he, not Preval would
have been today the front runner. If Preval gets elected or selected as seems
likely to happen with or without a second round, it is quite certain that
these  same people will be clamoring for the return of Aristide. How will he
handle  this crisis? Will he say then that he can not give orders to the
"people"?
Here  he is playing sith a long match that me be lit at both ends and may set
him on  fire a few months down the line. It is still time for him to
recuperate some  semblance of statesmanship. All is not lost.

----- End forwarded message -----