Elections in Haiti are set to happen, but what kind will they be?

Here’s an oped piece that I collaborated on with our legal director about Haiti’s upcoming elections

By Thomas M. Griffin, Esq. and Ted Oswald

Haiti has another disaster looming – but this isn’t a natural one. On November 28^th, the beleaguered country will hold national elections sorely lacking in transparency and inclusivity. Whatever government is elected, its deficiencies will impede reconstruction efforts and perpetuate the cycle of oppression that grinds against the poor majority.

While the Haitian leadership, foreign stakeholder governments, and the candidates would have us believe that these elections are free and fair, the truth is that the run-up to elections day has been a volatile mix of unjust meddling by government institutions, backroom decision-making, and woefully flawed preparations. With the U.S. having pledged over a billion dollars in reconstruction aid to Haiti, we should not be content to equate the mere staging of elections with the meaningful democracy necessary to move Haiti forward.

Most of the fault for these electoral deficiencies lies with the Provisional Electoral Council (“CEP” in French), its members hand-picked by the much-maligned current President Rene Preval. Charged with running the elections and certifying parties and candidates to stand for presidential and legislative offices, the CEP broke from the constitution early on when it barred the Fanmi Lavalas party for the second election cycle in a row. Lavalas is the only party that has the backing of the poor majority, and this exclusion has left this massive voting block feeling cheated again. On top of this, a lack of transparency in the CEP’s certification of presidential candidates gave the appearance of partiality from the start of campaigning, leaving many fearing that the election has already been decided.

Amplifying these fears is the CEP’s failure to adequately prepare the population for the elections. Historically difficult voter registration became a herculean task post-quake due to the estimated 1.5 million Haitians displaced into ragged tent cities surrounding Port-au-Prince. Instead of mounting a significant campaign to register new voters, enter changed addresses for the displaced, or purge names of those killed by the January quake, the CEP’s inactivity has set the stage for the exclusion of many and the likelihood of double-voting and ghost voting.

Most of Haiti’s 10 million people living in dire poverty are resigned to the fact these elections will not make a difference. Fatigue from natural disasters and cholera, daily struggles to survive post-quake, and the search for food and medicine have demobilized the masses from organizing substantial opposition in protest of these deficiencies. In the neighborhoods where our organization works, we hear the common refrain that these play elections are for the benefit of the already powerful and not the poor.

Whether or not the next government is legitimate, it will face hard days ahead. The cholera epidemic, forced evictions, and the resettlement of camp dwellers will confront it with more human rights crises. Without a strong popular mandate, the next government will have little incentive to serve the majority of its citizens. More likely, it will choose to neglect these new challenges, as has historically been the case with Haiti’s grinding poverty, disease, unemployment, broken education system, and crumbling infrastructure.

For the U.S. to condone these elections without demanding transparency is to perpetuate the corruption common in Haitian politics, sending millions of aid dollars down the drain while undermining the only true foundation for rebuilding Haiti– democracy. Instead of pushing ahead with flawed elections that will reinforce a state already rife with disastrous inequalities, we would be better served by insisting that elections are not held until they can be guaranteed as free, fair, and inclusive.