Caribbean Times 90th issue - Friday 15th April 2016

10 c a r i b b e a n t i m e s . a g
Friday 15th April 2016
No quick
fix in Haiti
Peace and development miamiherald.com/news/
will be endangered in Haiti nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article70818937.
if the United States and other
nations insist that the interim
government holds the reason for my conviction is
html#storylink=cpy). The
second round of a truncated precisely because there is a
election for a President of widespread and overwhelming
belief in Haiti that the
the Republic without a verification
process of the first first round elections were seriously
flawed. Among the
round that took place on October
25 last year.
over 50 groups with whom
The Secretary-General my team and I interfaced
of the Organisation of American
States (OAS), Luis Alcept
Martelly’s Parti Haï-
in Haiti in February, all exmagro,
who visited Haiti on tien Têt Kalé (PHTK) party,
13 and 14 April, was right to expressed concern; some
say that the Haitian authorities
should be given time none without misgivings.
stronger than others, but
to organise the elections. Among the groups from
The Secretary-General had the wider international community
that observed the
invited me to accompany
him to Haiti since I had led October 25 elections was
an OAS mission there that the OAS, and during our
oversaw an agreement between
the political players groups we faced continuous
exchanges with the Haitian
that led to the creation of claims that the Organisation
an interim government after contributed to foisting the
the constitutional departure elections flawed results on
from office of President Michel
Martelly on February 6. claring them acceptable. Of
the Haitian people by de-
Other duties on behalf of my course, this allegation was
own government caused me robustly resisted not only
not to join Mr Almagro, but because it was absolutely
untrue, but also because
had I done so I would have
fully endorsed his statement. we knew it had become a
Indeed, in an interview convenient political crutch
with Jacqueline Charles of for all the candidates who
the Miami Herald published had performed badly at
on April 8, I had argued that the polls. But, resisting an
verifying the disputed elections
is vital to avoiding a extinguish it, particularly
ill-conceived belief does not
deepening political crisis as other Observer missions
on the island ( http://www. declared that the elections
By Sir Ronald Sanders
were plagued by irregularities.
The admission that,
while numerous, the irregularities
were not significant
enough to materially affect
the outcome of the elections,
did little to assuage suspicion.
And, the problem is
that like a sore that has been
allowed to fester for almost
6 months, suspicion of the
elections has spread more
widely in the Haitian body
politic.
The October 25 elections
delivered a presidential runoff
between Jovenel Moïse
of Martelly’s PHTK party
after he received 32.76%
of the vote and Jude Célestin
of the Ligue Alternative
Pour le Progrés et l’Emancipation
Haïtienne (Lapeh)
party, who received 25.29%.
The other 50 candidates
shared less than 32%. That
run-off was not completed
before Martelly was due to
demit office on February 6.
It was that failure to hold the
second round of elections
amid political confusion and
simmering violence that led
to the February 5 political
Agreement for the establishment
of an interim government
with a time table for
the holding of the run-off
elections on April 24 and
the installation of an elected
President on May 14.
As it turned out, continuing
distrust between the
political actors within and
outside the National Assembly
which was charged, under
the agreement, with the
selection of an interim President
and an interim Prime
Minister took longer to be
settled than was anticipated.
The same distrust continues
to haunt the second round of
the elections. The spectre
of a flawed first round election
hangs ominously over
the second. This is why the
cont’d on pg 11