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Battered Haiti attempts elections in time of cholera

22 November 2010 17:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Impoverished Haiti, long afflicted by political turmoil and natural disasters, will hold presidential and legislative elections on Sunday under the scourge of a deadly cholera epidemic, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
With dozens of cholera victims dying each day and the death toll climbing well over 1,250, Haitians are being asked to elect a new president, a 99-member parliament and 11 members of the 30-seat Senate to lead the recovery of the Caribbean nation following a crippling January earthquake.
Reports that Nepalese U.N. peacekeepers brought the cholera to Haiti -- a theory rebuffed as inconclusive so far by the United Nations -- have triggered anti-U.N. riots and protests, complicating both the task of organizing the polls and the struggling international aid response to the cholera outbreak.
Here are some questions and answers about the elections:
CAN HAITI HOLD SUCCESSFUL ELECTIONS UNDER SUCH CONDITIONS?
Haiti’s government has not moved to postpone the polls and Edmond Mulet, the head of the 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), says the logistical, technical and security aspects are in place to hold credible elections.
But the raging cholera epidemic has created a new national emergency for Haiti, stirring anger, fear and uncertainty among its population of 10 million who are already traumatized from the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people.
Election campaigning was cut back in the central regions worst affected by the cholera and was further disrupted in the north by several days of anti-U.N. riots last week in which at least two people were killed and dozens wounded.
U.N. personnel have been helping to set up polling stations and with the distribution of ballot papers. But their logistical resources have been stretched as planes, helicopters, trucks and troops are also needed to assist the U.N.-led international cholera response which aid workers say is currently not enough to stem the epidemic.
The violent anti-U.N. riots in the northern city of Cap-Haitien have raised questions about whether the U.N. peacekeepers can effectively fulfill their electoral security role, if they themselves are the targets of attacks.
U.N. officials blame the anti-U.N. attacks on criminal and political "spoilers" bent on sabotaging the November 28 elections.
Some politicians wonder whether voters will participate when they are preoccupied with escaping the cholera and eking out a daily livelihood in a country with an economy shattered by the earthquake 10 months ago.
Several of the 19 presidential candidates have called for the vote to be postponed. But U.N. mission chief Mulet says "the vast majority of Haitians want elections."
Many politicians and analysts say the risks of not holding elections in the volatile country and the dangers of creating a political vacuum far outweigh the humanitarian, logistical and security challenges of going ahead with the polls.
"Neither the earthquake, nor the cholera can stop the elections," Mirlande Manigat, a former Haitian first lady and one of the leading presidential candidates, told Reuters.
Apart from the organizational challenges of the November 28 elections, the polls also face credibility issues in a country where electoral politics have for years been polarizing and contentious, and often chaotic and violent.
Doubts have been cast on the impartiality of the electoral authority, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), which has registered 19 presidential candidates, 120 Senate and 900 Chamber of Deputies candidates, and 66 political parties.
"Unresolved discord between the executive and opposition parties over the CEP’s composition and perceived bias in favor of outgoing President Rene Preval adds to the credibility challenge," the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report last month on the Haitian electoral process.
A group of U.S. Democratic lawmakers also expressed concerns in October that the electoral council had excluded from the polls candidates from more than a dozen parties, including the country’s largest, Fanmi Lavalas, loyal to exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The lawmakers told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that "running transparently unfair, exclusive elections, with the support of the international community" could be a "recipe for disaster" for the future of Haiti.
The U.N.’s Mulet says he believes there is sufficient diversity in the registered range of candidates, including known supporters of Aristide, to ensure democratic elections.
Preval, who cannot seek re-election after two terms in office, has rejected accusations that he is meddling in the electoral council to have influence over the future government that is chosen.
His critics include Haitian-American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean, who was judged ineligible in August to run for the presidency. Jean fired back with a song in Creole blasting Preval and calling for electoral officials to be jailed.
The ICG and the U.S. lawmakers also urged electoral authorities to ensure that more than 1.5 million people made homeless or displaced by the earthquake will be able to participate. They warned that if they are excluded this group could become a focus of protests or unrest.
The Organization of American States and the European Union are among entities with observers monitoring the polls.
WILL THE ELECTION BRING STABILITY TO HAITI?
Credible elections are indispensable to underpin Haiti’s recovery from the devastating January 12 earthquake, and to ensure future stability in a country with a turbulent history of uprisings, dictatorships and foreign military interventions.
Failure to successfully elect a legitimate government in the eyes of the Haitian people will jeopardize billions of dollars of donor money pledged for Haiti’s reconstruction and hopes of obtaining foreign investment to complement it.
With several front-runners -- but no clear favorite -- among presidential contenders, observers say the poll may not produce a clear first-round winner with over 50 percent of votes and may have to go to a January 16 second round.
This could increase the chance of electoral disputes.
Many believe Haiti’s new elected leader will need to seek a broad national consensus that breaks the monopoly on political and economic power previously held by elites and gives a voice to the country’s poor, long disenfranchised masses and the hundreds of thousands of destitute earthquake victims.
"No matter who wins, to get the country out of where we are, you need a credible coalition," said Stanley Lucas, a member of the Haitian diaspora in the United States and co-chairman of the Greater Washington Haiti Relief Committee.
The optimists view Haiti’s November 28 elections as an opportunity for the country to break with its past of bloodshed, turmoil and instability and escape from the poverty and dependency trap which has made it a "Republic of NGOs" (nongovernmental organizations).
But pessimists fear the polls could simply add a chapter of misfortune to the tale of woes -- both natural and man-made -- that have battered Haiti since a revolt of black slaves launched the process that led to its 1804 independence from France, an event that shook the world.
"We should expect fraud, a lot of problems ... personally I don’t see it as a situation producing a new leadership, but as one that will give birth to another crisis," Haitian historian and journalist Michel Soukar told Reuters.