This Week in HaitiHaïti Progrès
10 au 16 Mai 2000
OAS Rubberstamps CEP Election FiguresIn a report released last week, the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) threw its weight behind Haiti's embattled Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), revealing the determination of Washington and the "international community" to see parliamentary and municipal elections held on May 21.
In essence, the OAS report just rehashes voter registration figures provided by the CEP, which claims that 3,959,571 voters have registered out of a potential electorate of 4,245,384, or 93.27 percent.
The OAS deemed the CEP's figures to be reliable principally because "during the last two days of registration, the BIs [registration stations] were open, but few people requested voter cards." This was practically the OAS's only first-hand observation in the report. Furthermore, the OAS does not specify how many of the 3500 BIs scattered around Haiti it visited during the last two days of voter registration -- and for how long -- with its force of only about 80 observers.
The rest of the report's findings were almost entirely drawn from the self-evaluations of election officials.
The OAS report contradicts that of an independent human rights delegation headed by Global Exchange and the Quixote Center which pointed to widespread estimates that "up to 25% of the eligible voters have been prevented or deterred from registering." The independent delegation questioned the CEP's claim of near universal registration by noting that "this claim is not consistent with what we heard again and again from religious, civic, labor, and peasant leaders" (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, Nº. 7, 5/3/00).
In some places, the arbitrary nature of the CEP's figures was underscored by the OAS itself. For example, the estimate of the voting population at 4.245 million was based on questionable projections from a questionable census done 18 years ago. "The Mission was unable to obtain the exact methodology for this calculation," the OAS report states.
In fact, a Canadian election consultant publicly criticized the CEP's electorate estimates as much too low earlier this year (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 17, Nº. 49 2/23/00).
In another case, the OAS dutifully reports that 91.77% of the Artibonite's electorate (580,975 voters out of 633,065 eligible) were registered and then notes that "the Secretary and the Vice-President of the BED [Departmental Electoral Office] continue to insist to the EOM that 50% of the population were not able to register." Nonetheless, the OAS seem to favor the BED President who "maintains that all those who wished to register were able to do so" and its purported observation of "little activity in BIs in the final days of registration."
The former president of the 1995 CEP revealed just how deep foreign involvement has become in Haitian elections in a long analysis published in the Mar. 8 edition of the weekly Haïti en Marche. Entitled "Elections, foreign meddling, and national sovereignty in Haiti," Anselme Rémy explained the tremendous foreign pressures, manipulation, and intimidation he resisted from the "so-called international community under the orders of the US" which has not "abandoned its plans to control the electoral process" in Haiti. In just one of many examples, "USAID [US Agency for International Development] was the executive body which controlled all the funds turned over to the United Nations by the US for the elections," Remy explained. In the 1995 election, the US provided about $8 million of the $11 million polling tab.
The 1995 election was also the first where "the CEP learned that IFES [the International Foundation for Electoral Systems] would be the body in charge of and responsible for acquiring and handling the candidates' records, the formation of the BEDs and BECs [Communal Electoral Offices] and other formations, and of the counting and calculation of the election results."
Today USAID is again using IFES to oversee Haiti's elections, but the OAS is now playing a bigger role since the UN mission to Haiti is in financial distress.
"The OAS is just a mouthpiece for the Clinton administration," said Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), which has abstained from participating in the current elections due to the blatant foreign meddling. "Clinton wants the elections to happen under any conditions while the Republicans want to make a mess. That's why we think the 'laboratory' has stepped up the level of violence and terror since the killing of Jean Dominique. We may be witnessing a repeat of the Harlan County incident."
In Oct. 1993, the CIA undermined official US policy by conspiring with the death-squad FRAPH to create a climate of terror to prevent the first scheduled return of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The campaign culminated in a theatrical and violent demonstration on the Port-au-Prince wharf which forced Clinton to recall the USS Harlan County, which was supposed to off-load US and Canadian troops.
Another looming problem for May 21 is fraud, which many Haitians feel could contribute greatly to an "electoral coup d'état." The OAS tried to downplay this danger, but could not ignore it. "At the CEP's own admission, some voters have registered more than once, which would inflate the percentage of those registered vis-a-vis the estimated voting population," the OAS report said. Nonetheless the OAS, without any explanation, concludes that such fraud "does not appear" to be "planned on a nationwide scale" and "double registration does not, therefore, appear to be a major problem."
But for parties like the PPN, such anomalies cannot be papered over. "The only way the CEP could really know how many people are registered is to centralize and computerize all the lists of registered voters which are now being maintained separately at each registration station," Dupuy said. "There is nothing now which prevents a voter from having ten electoral cards."