It is an unmistakable sign. Long before the Provisional
Electoral Council (CEP) and the Haitian government gave
their assessment of the Nov. 20, 2016 presidential and
legislative elections, all electoral observation
organizations (both Haitian and foreign) had made it
clear that they felt everything had gone well.
These organizations felt that the electoral
results proclaimed by the CEP also reflected the
atmosphere that day. These institutions are generally
very cautious about recognizing the good conduct of an
election in Haiti, especially the results.
Virtually all civil society organizations clearly
dubbed the election a success and congratulated the CEP
for its achievement. For the Oct. 25, 2015 elections,
many had deemed the voting to be acceptable, if tainted
by irregularities, but others withheld their assessment,
an attitude that foreshadowed the eel under the
rock. We know what happened next. The elections were
deemed fraudulent.
But for this new election, there was unison among
Haitian and foreign election observers, recognizing that
Léopold Berlanger’s CEP had made almost no fault, at
least on the organizational level. Of course, they have
not given a blank check to the CEP and Haitian
government officials.
Nevertheless, they noted that everything was
planned so that voters could choose their
representatives democratically and without constraint.
Kettly Julien, Director of the Mobile Institute of
Democratic Education (IMED) saw "this day as a success,"
although she raises, like everyone else, some flaws in
the whole process. Meanwhile Jean-Robert Arguant, who is
the Coordinator of the December 4 Collective, welcomed
the "good voting process."
Moreover, for Antonal Mortimé, Secretary General
of the New England Human Rights Organization (NEHRO),
everything was done according to the rules or almost.
"Electoral materials were of good quality, including
polling booths, distribution of sensitive materials in
the polling stations was well organized, electoral staff
were accessible to all,” he said. “These were among the
positive points that contributed to the success of the
election day on Sun., Nov. 20, 2016."
The Citizen Observatory for the
Institutionalization of Democracy (OCID), which has been
following the whole process from the beginning, has
recognized that even if everything is not perfect, the
authorities have done what was necessary for the
elections’ success. With 1505 field observers in 1203
polling stations from morning to night, OCID officials
considered themselves well-placed to rate the CEP’s
success. Indeed, after a review of all the data on
various criteria including "compliance with procedures
in polling stations, presence of agents at the time of
counting, conditions under which counting took place,
data on turnout, particularly in areas affected by
Hurricane Matthew and unaffected areas, substantial
participation of women in relation to men, etc.," the
organization considers the Nov. 20 election as "an
important step in the realization of democratic
elections in Haiti."
Rosny Desroches, Coordinator of the Civil Society
Initiative (CSI) and an OCID member "welcomed the
efforts of this CEP which has prepared textbooks, codes
of ethics for all those who are in the BCED and the BCEN
and which set a number of principles."
"Our observers were able to follow the process to
the end in 99.3% of the polling stations," said Abdonel
Doudou, one of OCID’s leaders. "They noted that, at the
end of the process, the supervisors put the following
documents in transparent envelopes to be sent to the
Provisional Electoral Council (CEP): the tally sheet of
counting in 99.3% of the polling stations; the list of
signatures in 97.8% of the polling stations; the
counting sheet in 97.5% of polling stations; the tally
sheet of irregularities in 88.4% of the polling
stations, and the tally sheet of incidents in 86.3% of
the polling stations."
In short, for this Haitian consortium of
electoral observation organizations, there is nothing to
suggest that there were organized frauds as was the case
in past elections. They say they are satisfied with the
work of the CEP but nevertheless recommend that the
institution "be more vigilant, more perspicacious in
order to meet the challenges that await it in the
following phases."
There were also some foreign observers, among
others, those of the Organization of American States
(OAS) led by the Chilean Juan Raul Ferreira. At the
Marriott Hotel in Port-au-Prince, the diplomat delivered
the conclusions of a report by the130 OAS observers who
had worked on 474 voting centers across the country on
Nov. 20.
According to the head of the Electoral Observer
Mission of American States (MOE-OAS), "the measures
implemented by the authorities helped to improve the
election day and the good conditions in which the vote
took place." In the presence of several diplomats
accredited in the Haitian capital, gathered for the
occasion at Port-au-Prince’s Marriott Hotel, Juan Raul
Ferreira team found that "the polling stations observed
opened at 6:50 am. All had received the necessary
electoral material. There were new polling booths
promoting the vote’s confidentiality and the use of a
new type of indelible ink to identify citizens who
voted. The process of voting proceeded more
effectively."
The final words were reserved for Gerardo de
Icaza, Director of the OAS Department for Cooperation
and Electoral Observation, and Cristobal Dupouy, Deputy
Head of the Mission, who had made the trip. "Everything
was done so that the voters voted in better conditions,"
they concluded.
Naturally, in these congratulatory flourishes,
there was inevitably the voice of the guardian powers
through the channel of the "Core Group" which claims to
speak for the entire international community. Ms. Sandra
Honoré, the civilian leader of the occupation force
known as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in
Haiti (MINUSTAH) and Special Representative of UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, hastened to salute "the
Haitian people and Haitian authorities for their efforts
to hold these elections." In a communiqué, MINUSTAH’s
chief said: "The Core Group congratulates all actors, in
particular the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), the
Government, and the Haitian National Police, as well as
candidates, political parties, and Civil Society for
their respective contributions in this regard."
As for Washington, it applauded Haitian
authorities through State Department Deputy Spokesman
and Secretary of State John Kirby. "We congratulate
Haitians for exercising their right to vote peacefully
and, in certain areas, in difficult circumstances,” he
said. “The United States congratulates the continued
determination of the Provisional Electoral Council, the
Haitian National Police, and the Haitian government to
achieve free, fair, credible and peaceful elections."
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was not left
behind. They were also satisfied with the CEP’s
performance. According to the Report of the Electoral
Observation Mission of the Caribbean Community (CEOM),
"the CEP’s personnel were trained, committed, and
dedicated to carry out effectively the elections for the
presidential and legislative elections." CEOM had
observed 300 polling stations in the capital and in
areas hit by Hurricane Matthew.
Finally, we close this overview with the position
of Paris. "France welcomes the smooth running of the
Nov. 20 election day and the Haitian authorities’
efforts which have enabled the entire population,
including those affected by Hurricane Matthew, to
express their choice in serenity and transparency.
Pending publication of the results, France calls on all
political actors to respect electoral regulations,"said
the spokesman of the Quai d'Orsay (French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and International Development). This
position was confirmed last week by the visit to Haiti
of former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, the current
French foreign minister, who visited the
hurricane-damaged city of Jérémie in the Grand'Anse
department.
Although these observation organizations
applauded the conduct of the Nov. 20 elections, it
cannot be ignored that the day after the election, the
Lavalas Family party took to the streets to proclaim
that its candidate Maryse Narcisse won the elections,
but also to claim that there had been an "electoral
coup." This party was joined on the streets of the
capital by Dessalines’ Children (Pitit Desalin), an FL
split-off, for a large march on the 26th anniversary of
the first democratic election in Haiti which took place
on Dec. 16, 1990.
However, it will be necessary to wait until the
end of the struggle between the protesters, the
contested presidential candidate Jovenel Moise of the
Haitian Bald Headed Party (PHTK), and the Office of
National Electoral Litigation (BCEN) to know whether the
electoral observers and the human rights organizations
were right. Are victory and truth are on the side of the
protesting crowds, or with the right-wing and
imperialist forces which have never accompanied the
Haitian people, from Jimmy Carter in 1990 to Hillary
Clinton in 2010?
(This is a translation of the 135th installment of Catherine
Charlemagne’s weekly French analysis in Haïti Liberté
entitled “Haiti, the chronicle of an electoral crisis.”)
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