HAITI: THE DANGER OF RIGGED ELECTIONS

                        HAITI: THE DANGER OF RIGGED ELECTIONS           

                            By Herno Remy
                            [e-mail]
     
      The Haitian constitution has a provision for a Permanent Electoral Council. However, such a council has never been given birth for reasons beyond my understanding. From the first elections, after the Duvaliers fled Haiti, to subsequent elections, a Provisional Electoral Council, also known as CEP, has always organized elections in Haiti. The problem with the CEP is that it has never gained enough experience and the credibility required to conduct fair and unrigged elections. Such a problem is due to the fact that from 1988 to today its members have always been ephemeral. The people who make up the CEP are constantly being replaced and most of the time they serve at the pleasure of the existing government when, in fact, the CEP should have been independent. The Councils who have refused to be dictated by the government have experienced ugly fates as it was the case for the first Council in 1988. Its offices burned down and its nine members fled for their lives simply because they were determined to uphold article 291 of the constitution, which, at the time, banned Duvalierists from participating in the elections.                                                                                                                     
      Rigged elections have always been a serious problem for Haiti. In its more than 200 years of independence, rare are those moments where a president has been able to clinch the presidency without fraud or “magouy” as we call it in Haiti.  This situation, coupled with many other factors,  further erodes Haiti’s lack of economic growth. Investors have refused to invest because they fear that at any moment Haiti could be the center of a cataclysmic political event capable of wiping out every potential investment.  Therefore, jobs cannot be created and the country’s future is constantly being reset and continually stagnates.  Haiti has had so many rigged elections that it has become the norm that every election will be flawed. If Haiti has been able to escape fierce and bloody fight in a struggle for power between groups for decades, this year it might not be so lucky.  The CEP, the President, and the candidates have no choice this year but to get it right. Elections are scheduled to be held on November 28th and already the credibility of the council is being questioned. Political parties have asked the president to replace members of the council who they think are subservient. Moreover, Jacques Edouard Alexis, former prime minister and also a presidential candidate, has made disturbing revelations concerning distributions of weapons from Rene Preval, the outgoing president, to his partisans to rig the outcome of the elections. Let’s hope such revelations are nothing but rumors or him trying to score political points.
   
      There are many reasons why Haiti cannot afford flawed elections without paying a heavy price this year. However, one of the reasons is worth mentioning:  The Haitians' patience has reached its threshold. An unparalleled determination of the Haitian people to punish their leaders who have kept them in extreme poverty for decades, while getting rich, has been manifest  immediately after the earthquake. Consequently, this is a fundamental reason that may explain their outburst if this year’s elections are not legitimate.  Very few countries on earth have a population so patient and not prone to violence as the Haitian people. They have patiently waited for decades to see economic growth, political stability, and an end to corruption in their country. Unfortunately, the Haitian leaders have never been able to prove that they are fit to be responsible leaders and satisfy these expectations. On several occasions, the Haitians have risen up against their government but such risings have never been done in a revolutionary manner. Therefore, the status quo keeps bouncing back. After the earthquake, the Haitians’ patience has reached its threshold. They have realized that the fierce urgency of now is of the essence. For decades, 76% of the Haitians have lived on less than $2 a day before the earthquake. The statistics have certainly changed for the worst after the earthquake. Since there is no room for the Haitians to go much deeper into poverty, change can only happen now or never. Therefore, the pressure is on the political parties, Preval and the electoral council. They have no choice but to give the people fair elections. Failure to do so can result in a wave of violence that the international community has never seen before in Haiti.
   
      As the world had witnessed in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide, the United Nations troops on the ground in Rwanda were helpless. There is no reason to believe that Haiti will be an exception; thus, any notion that there cannot be any violence in Haiti in the presence of the UN troops should be brushed aside.  This time, Preval and his cronies better believe that shelter will be nowhere to be found even under the protection of the Brazilians troops. The moderate Hutu Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, was killed while she was guarded by a detachment of Belgian soldiers not too far from the US diplomat's house, Joyce Leader. In fact, these soldiers were arrested, disarmed, tortured, and murdered by the extremists Hutus. The brutality of the attack prompted Belgium to withdraw the remainder of its U.N. troops from Rwanda and other nations would do the same leaving poor, defenseless, and moderate Tutsis to be the victims of the worst genocide of the century. Therefore, it would be a mistake for government officials to believe that the U.N. troops will serve as a buffer against any wave of violence. The soldiers who make up the U.N peace keeping mission in Haiti, with the exception of a few, are from democratic countries. Thus, the people of these countries can ask their governments to take their sons and daughters out of harm’s way in Haiti if violence breaks out. In economics, there is something called “moral hazard.” It is the expectation that a company or an individual have that they will be rescued by the government even if they have been behaving rashly. I hope that president Preval, the political parties, and the CEP know that in politics moral hazard does not exist. Rash behavior carries with it dire consequences; the UN will not be able to rescue any one of them. Therefore, it is in their interest to conduct free and fair elections.