The Joint OAS – CARICOM Electoral Observation Mission in Haiti has called on Haitians to continue to be patient as the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) counts the votes from the second round of the presidential elections.
In the wake of an announcement by the CEP that it would postpone publication of the preliminary results of the 20 March election to 4 April, the Mission said in a release today that it acknowledged “the civility and the patience” displayed by the Haitian people while the votes were being counted and it asked for more of the same.
“The Mission… calls on them and the candidates to maintain this peacefulness while awaiting the postponed publication of the preliminary results of the second round of the presidential and legislative elections on 4 April 201l,” the release stated. The election monitors said they were present in the Vote Tabulation Centre (CTV) “around the clock” and had noticed that over 15 thousand results sheets representing 60 per cent of the total number had been sent to the Legal Control Unit (UCL) for scrutiny.
“This represents a significant increase compared to the first round when 10 per cent of the results sheets had been examined,” the Mission stated in the release.“This huge increase is the consequence of the strengthening of the measures used to identify the results sheets for verification in order to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the preliminary results and thereby contribute to their legitimacy.”
The Mission said it noted the difficulties for the CTV staff in carrying out “the rigorous and systematic verification of this large number of results sheets” in order to avoid the pitfalls which characterized the first round. (CMC)
