AS BARBADIANS today celebrate this nation’s 44th Independence anniversary they may also wish to offer a prayer for the suffering people of Haiti whose country is in a state of permanent crisis.
Tortured by recurring nightmare tragedies, from last January’s unprecedented devastating earthquake to last month’s outbreak of the dreaded cholera disease, there are now growing fears of eruption of new political hostilities and violence over the conduct of Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
Angry cries of “fraud” and calls for new elections have already come from a dozen of the I9 presidential candidates, even as the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) grapples with the controversial outcome of Sunday’s voting and moves ahead with arrangements for a scheduled December 7 declaration of the official results.
At the core of allegations is that the elections were rigged to favour the candidate of the incumbent party of President Rene Preval, who is constitutionally due to demit office on February 7 next year. The CEP itself has been accused of involvement in inappropriate practices from the start of the registration of voters for the November 28 poll.
Denials of electoral malpractices by the CEP as well as from regional and international monitors, among them representatives of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), have failed to ease angry passions which have led to scenes of physical violence and acts of arson.
Fears of serious trouble brewing had surfaced from the time of the exclusion, on a claimed ‘technicality’ by the CEP, of Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, of which the deposed and exiled President Jean Bertrand Aristide was founder-leader.
It is simply difficult to appreciate the nature and extent of the technical/legal problems that led to the exclusion of Lavalas candidates from contesting the elections, given the stated commitment for expanding and strengthening “democracy and human rights” and with foreign donors and others insisting that the elections should go ahead, despite the human tragedies..
in the circumstances, there seems to be a valid case for an independent investigation into all relevant circumstances that led to the exclusion of the Lavalas party from Sunday’s elections and the release of a detailed statement on the findings..
In the face of fears of renewed violence, which have lready moved from rural and urban areas to the capital Port-au-Prince, the credibility of the elections will be a most challenging problem for both the ECP and the outgoing Preval administration.
The United Nations peace-keeping mission in Haiti has expressed its own “deep concerns” over the prevailing tension and threats of worsening conflicts, even as frenzied efforts are continuing to cope with the cholera epidemic that has affected post-earthquake rehabilitation activities.