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 March
1, 2006 -
The
lasting image I have of Election Day in Haiti
last month was just after sundown. I was
standing outside the hollow shell of a building
where 43 tables, or polling stations, were
located. Poll workers who had been on site for
more than 14 hours were huddled around a single
candle per table, the only light available for
the polling booth president to read the ballot,
pass it around to political party observers for
confirmation and then have the secretary record
the vote on a master tally sheet. I left before
the last vote was counted, bleary-eyed and
discouraged that after so many years, so many
elections, so many battles to get to this
celebratory day of democracy, this was the best
that Haitians were going to get.
Election a disgrace
While I admit that it's hard to build an
electoral framework without an infrastructure,
this was the fourth presidential election I've
witnessed in the last 18 years, and I know I am
not setting the bar too high by saying that it
was a disgrace.
The entire procedure, from the ill-conceived
voting booths to the dismal tabulation process
was an insult to the Haitian people. It's hard
to understand how, with a $75 million budget
covered by the international community, a
bloated electoral calendar that included four
postponements over three months and well-paid --
if not over-paid
-- international experts from the United Nations
and the Organization of American States, there
could have been so much mayhem and magouy -- a
catchall Creole word that means corruption,
deceit and swindling.
Which begs the questions: Why? And then what, if
anything, can be done to rectify the problem for
the 129 parliamentary seats and numerous local
spots yet to be determined? Although the runoffs
were originally set for March 19, they have
already been postponed. Unfortunately, the delay
appears to be related to technical tally
difficulties and the flight of the Provisional
Electoral Council president rather than an aptly
concentrated effort to identify and correct the
massive fraud that took place in the first
round.
What went wrong?
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say
that this is part of a master plan by the
international community to undermine
President-elect René Préval, who can't govern
until he has a prime minister, chosen in
conjunction with the parliament. Préval's
previous record as president has the
international community concerned that he will
either realign himself with ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, or govern as an
independent, truly democratic leader with an
unprecedented popular mandate.
With no investigation into all that went wrong
with the first round of voting, and because
there will be far less attention paid to these
upcoming elections now that the presidency has
been decided, there will be an even greater
chance for irregularity. Voters will trek long
distances, confront incomplete registration
lists and then cast their vote without knowing
if it will be counted because poll workers with
political agendas know precisely how much they
were able to get away with already. Tinkering
with tally sheets, allowing voters to cast
multiple ballots and stuffing the ballot box
will, in some places -- particularly those in
the hard to reach areas in the countryside -- be
the norm, rather than the exception.
Expose the problems
There were more than a thousand national
observers and three international observation
teams for Haiti's first round. These groups have
been shamefully silent. Sending internal memos
and holding backroom discussions on electoral
discrepancies with foreign diplomats and Haitian
officials without demanding changes or exposing
the problems and their sources to the press
serves only to massage their egos and pad their
pockets. It does nothing to advance the
democratic process in Haiti. If this is the best
that they can do, they should stay home.
It doesn't have to be this way. We have to
demand that our dollars are put to better use,
propping up Haitian institutions that will hold
the Haitian state accountable. We need to be
selective but generous in supporting specific
grass-roots groups, some of which trained local
observers who did their best to try to ensure
fraud-free elections. The vast majority of the
37,000 poll workers and nearly 2.1 million who
voted want, and deserve, at least that much.
Kathie Klarreich is a freelance journalist and
author of Madame Dread:
A Tale of Love, Vodou and Civil Strife in Haiti.
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