After installing a new government led by Prime Minister
Enex Jean-Charles, Haiti’s interim president Jocelerme
Privert has now passed a second hurdle: setting up
another Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) on Mar. 30,
2016. This is the sixth CEP formed in the past four
years.
The new CEP has as its president
Léopold Berlanger,
formally the representative of the National Association
of Haitian Media (ANMH) and the Association of Haiti’s
Independent Media (AMIH). Berlanger is also the informal
representative of Haiti’s bourgeoisie and the so-called
“Core Group,” the ambassadors who follow U.S. leadership
in Haiti.
The CEP’s vice-president is lawyer
Carlos Hercule,
who represents the Catholic Church of Cardinal Chibly
Langlois and Bishop Patrice Aris.
Marie
Frantz Joachim, the representative of Haitian Women
Solidarity (SOFA), is the CEP’s Secretary General, while
Dr. Frinel Joseph,
representing Haiti’s Protestant sector, is the
treasurer.
Haiti’s human rights sector, represented by the
Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH)
and the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH),
nominated
Jean
Simon Saint-Hubert
to the new CEP while the Peasant
and Vodou sector sent
Kenson Polynice.
Marie-Herolle Michel
represents the business
community on the new CEP, while
Josette Jean
Dorcely represents the trade union sector, and
Lucien
Jean-Bernard, the university sector.
Mr. Bernard was a member of the CEP which
organized the massively boycotted election of Jan. 17,
1988 that brought to power President Leslie François
Manigat. Four months after his Feb. 7, 1988
inauguration, Manigat was overthrown by the same
general, Henri Namphy, who put him in power. That 1988
CEP was chaired by Jean Gilbert, who held his election
less than two months after a Nov. 29, 1987 election was
aborted after paramilitary thugs macheted and shot to
death dozens of would-be voters around Haiti.
The new CEP is also trying to hold an election in
an extremely polarized and volatile political
atmosphere. The big question is this: will it annul the
Aug. 9 and Oct. 25, 2015 rounds, as demanded by Haiti’s
people and most of the political class, or will it
attempt to hold a third round which accepts the results
of the first two, as demanded by the “Core Group”?
Haiti’s leading presidential candidates demand
the formation of an independent commission of inquiry to
review the ballots and tally sheets of the Aug. 9 and
Oct. 25 pollings, marred by fraud and violence, to
determine what the true results were, if that can even
be done. Many doubt it can.
If the independent investigation is not carried
out, it is doubtful that any major presidential
candidate will participate in the elections whose
schedule the new CEP must establish.
On Apr. 4, popular organizations and students
organized a sit-in in front of the National Palace and
the Justice Ministry to demand that in addition to an
independent commission of electoral verification, there
be formed a commission to audit the management of three
funds.
First, they want an investigation of the Interim
Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), co-chaired by former
U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton, which decided how to spend
about $13 billion in post-earthquake international aid
to Haiti.
Secondly, they want to know how over $1.5 billion
was spent by the government of President Michel Martelly
out of Haiti’s PetroCaribe account, where 40% of all
state oil sales are parked to provide capital for social
welfare programs. Even Mary Barton-Dock, the World
Bank’s Special Envoy to Haiti, told the
Financial Times
that “transparency in the use of PetroCaribe funds
is minimal.” Today, Haiti owes 86% of its foreign debt
to Venezuela, and it has not paid the 60% of oil
revenues it owes Venezuela up-front for over nine
months.
Finally, Martelly and his Prime Minister Laurent
Lamothe established an illegal tax (it was never
ratified by Parliament) of $1.50 on every international
money transfer and five cents on every international
phone call. The tax generated tens of millions of
dollars which have never been accounted for, although
the money was supposed to be “funding education.”
The demonstrators also denounced the interference
of the Core Group, the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti
(MINUSTAH) chief Sandra Honoré, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
Peter Mulrean, and Canadian Ambassador Paula Caldwell
St-Onge in Haiti’s internal affairs. Under the Vienna
Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations,
accredited diplomatic representatives are formally
prohibited from interfering in their host nation’s
internal affairs.
In recent weeks, students mobilizing at State
University’s Faculty of Ethnology and the Faculty of Law
have clashed with the Haitian National Police (PNH), as
they clashed with MINUSTAH troops last year. Today, they
say loud and clear that they will not obey the dictates
of the Core Group and Washington. If Leopold Berlanger
allows his CEP to be used by Washington like that of his
predecessor of Pierre-Louis Opont, he will suffer the
same fate of having to resign in disgrace, they say.
Interim President Jocelerme Privert and Prime Minister
Enex Jean-Charles are also not immune from popular anger
if they don’t establish commissions to verify Martelly’s
elections and audit his finances, demonstrators say.
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