Thursday, February 26, 2004
Haiti Elections
Haiti Elections
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President Aristide's promise to Haiti of Democracy is the culmination of an international project commenced in his predecessor President Preval's Administration. The year 2000 elections for the Haitian Congress - and that election's flaws - have been readily cited by the Opposition and the Rebels as their motivation for l'anvernal Aristide. They are worth reviewing. Linked below - the Quixote Project Report sustains a look at an incipient democracy reversing a military dictatorship which followed a terror ridden criminalistic personality cult of Doc Duvalier. That election report reads likreconstruction in the post civil war American South or the Civil rights South era's voting rights projects. Despite voter registration and voter intimidation and everything else Haiti is stereotyped for --elections -with flaws - were held in Haiti for its Congress in 2000 - for The Senate (6 years with a third re-elected thereafter every 2 years) and the whole House of Deputies for 4 year terms - by the new 1987 Constituion. That Congress is up for a re-election scheduled this fall in November 2004. Those flaws in the election were not the result of Aristide's Party - which calmy patiently expectedly with President Preval and others expected full voter registration and the maximum volitional voting participation The reports estimates that 60 % of eligible voters participated - despite corruption and voter intimidation activities. Aristide's party -winning a majority - actually joined a call for an election delay to register more and to teach democracy to Haitians - but the opposition wanted earlier elections and got them - fearing a coterminous Presidential and Congressional election a year or so later which would produce a larger Aristide majority. That Congressional election in 2000 was followed in 2001 by the Presidential election which Jean-Bertrand Aristide won and joined with his party's majoirty in the Haitian Congress - the Family or Lavalas (Avalanche in Creole) Party. That is the Haitian democracy now. One asks now why a US Republican Congress and Presidency was so bothered by it that they chose to join Europe and fund a Democracy Project to 'build opposition' parties'. That money was provided - but less money was available or provided - referenced for a cut by Senator Helms and others - for voter registration and voter education and voter safety projects. That action by mounting physical evidence seems to have conveyed the present political disarray in Haiti. Bizarrely the campaign of Aristide disinformation has painted the democrat and voting and constitution advocate as the 'bete noire' - because the opposition cannot portray him civilly as simply the majority represented incumbent who must share responsibility for polity or statecraft failure for better or wosre. President Aristide and his supporters acknowledge that he cannot be declaimed as a dictator or non-democratic as a constitutional majoritian office winner. Haiitans - save by God or the international communy - will soon have a taste of the anarchy combined with the White Horse Champion rescue from chaos in conversion to dictatorship again. When a parliamentary mind meets a presidential mind they re-marry others or divorce or combat. Haiti is a 'presidential political system' with a hybrid of a partial executive power sharing with Congress through a presidential Prime Minister which the Congress must confirm. Thats is done by the majority. Asking for Aristide's resignation is standard these days because of the parliamentary form - his term of office does not join a parliamentary form's dependence on a majority in the Congress. He can repeat a term of office if re-elected after a five year interval. Further were he to resign - the Presidency would befall the Supreme Court Chief Justice or his Vice Justice with a new presidential election in 45 days. Aristide would be out for five years and forfeit the Presidential function of his electoral majority which will likely continue -as long as the poor 99% are Haiti's voters. Haiti's problem now is the armed insurgency; and the Opposition sandbagging - the latter is politics -costly politics; and a costly scuttle. So it seems the Haitian democratic problem is that of the opposition -which is parliamentary-mind driven and cannot grasp the function of minority party offce holding. In Haiti that is also the prospect of its future Presidency depending on the Congress' composition . What Haiti needs is the incumbency of democracy and constitutional government .. what it is complaining of is the intolerance of the minority dissatisfied with Aristide . .which minority by measures and extra money - has bought anarchy and insurrection - and then stalled to avert an internationally assisted internal address and rescue of a threatened state. Americans and the international community wil write off a massive Haitian investment in democratic institution building - voter registration and elections processes. What the rebels and the opposition cannot sustain now is time to the next election. Hence the resignation and measure by by-election which should be ought to be their's. Haiti can save its democracy by acting now to accomodate Aristide's plan with CARICOM and the world's investment in its democray or wash it out with that abstention, and see lost time and the blood of civil war. President Bush's Administration has said no military help now - but has committed Secretary Powell to a policy role with USA participation in an OAS and CARICOM resolution - which requires money and manpower. Perhaps Powell can resign or explain lip service. President Aristide and his majority in Congress have met the CARICOM plan terms -- Haiti's minority and out of power opposition can join or be excluded. Haiti and the world have seen the Opposition's resort to vulgar street power and armed rebellion in refusal and abjection of responsibility. (None are fooled by the Chamber of Commerce -Group 184 - reception in Cite Soleil -as an Aristide street show against them). Let the CARICOM plan be implemented by the majority of Haiti's Congress and the responsible opposition who would join it. To acquiesce to less to is to veto Haiti's democracy and majority before the elections next fall. If you believe power-hungry former Haitian army officers and soldiers - mercenarily purchased - having tasted blood will leave or quit their activity after Aristide leaves and behave for the Acting-Presidency of a Supreme Court Justice and remain calm with the Congress and the Acting Presidency for the 45 days to a new presidential election -then you're a candidate for a voyage to Haiti as paradise. The second link below tells another story - Haiti's US trade -- Americans on average spend less than a $1 per person for Haitian export goods compared to almost $80 per Haitian for American goods. The Haitian living standard en masse is $1 per day ... that's the cause of poverty 100 miles from Florida while Americans complain of jobs lost or business invested in the world largest Dictatorship - China. Democracy buys nothing or costs too much -evidently. Americans useed to reward democracies with access to the USA market to buy their goods to raise their kindred lives and incomes. US Haiit Trade Figures Quixote.org Haiit 2000 Elections Report |
// posted by scotty of course @ 2:29 PM 
