Haitian Electoral Expertise:
Accomplishments and Challenges
Presentation by James Morrell
Director, Haiti Democracy Project
At the panel discussion “Haiti Election and
Leadership”
October 14, 2010 · Johns Hopkins University
Presentation dedicated to the memory of Micha
Gaillard, Haitian political visionary who perished
January 12, 2010
Haiti Succeeds in 2006
► Big
turnout, fair count
► Pluralistic candidates
and results
► Reasons:
► Regime neutral, could
not run its own
candidates
► U.S. insistence on
appointing competent
administrator
A Fatal Foreign Flaw
► One
candidate got 47 percent of the vote
► He cried fraud and called mobs onto the
street
► Foreign embassies, seeking closure, pressed
electoral board to count blank votes to put
candidate over the top
► A display of partisanship that would have
lasting consequences
Consequences Appear
► In
October 2007, a
delegation of five
Haitian senators
warned of delayed
elections
► Nothing was done.
Another delegation
went in May 2008
► Flawed elections finally
held April 2009
“Que faire?”
► Serge
Gilles, Fusion Party of Social
Democrats: “Que faire quand on a la
désagréable sensation que les jeux sont
faits avant même le début de la
compétition?”
► What
to do when you have the disagreeable
sensation that the results are in before the
game even begins?
Aftermath of Earthquake
►
►
André Lafontant Joseph,
March 21, 2010:
Haiti unready for elections
now. But . . .
Follow the Spirit
►“
. . . we can reach a political consensus
which follows the spirit of the constitution in
turning to the Supreme Court.
► “This provisional government’s mandate
would be above all to organize elections.
► “Up to now, the transition governments
have all succeeded in holding acceptable
elections.”
Foreigners Decree Otherwise
► U.N.
mission chief Edmond Mulet sets
November 28, 2010 as election day
► President Préval agreeable as he can control
outcome
► Sudden foreign insistence on electoral
calendar comes ill after their indifference to
delays 2007-2009
► Micha Gaillard: Foreign position is “blind and
ostrich-like.”
Foreign Intervention
► Democratic
sector decries electoral board’s
subservience to Préval
► OAS declares board valid and qualified
► Haitians call for constitutionally-required
audit of previous officials
► U.N. says dispense with audit
“Stability”
► U.S.
policy seeks stability by supporting the
personality in power
► An intervention both illicit and misguided, as
it won’t bring the coveted stability
► Micha Gaillard: Haiti’s political leaders
“won’t accept electoral masquerades that
exclude them from the scene for years to
come.”
Recommendations
► Hew
to strict neutrality in Haitian political
affairs
► Fund no elections below the standard of
2006
► Stop clinging to the personality in power
► Let change happen
► “The Haitian people are thirsty for change”
—Rev. Edouard Paultre
Strategy for National Salvation
► Haiti
has in its civil society,
political parties, business
sector, grassroots, and
diaspora the personnel capable
of modernizing the country
Conference for National Salvation
Leadership
► “Representatives
of the Haitian intellectual, social,
political and business worlds have come together
in Santo Domingo during August 28–30, 2009 in
an exercise of progressive spirit and a discarding
of past differences.
► “They commit to assault the traditional bastions of
irresponsibility, incompetence, corruption,
nepotism, and inhumanity which have blocked the
evolution of the Haitian nation for the past fifty
years.”