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Preliminary results announced
by Haiti’s Provisional Electoral
Council (CEP) on Apr. 4 showed
Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly with
67.6% of the vote, while Mirlande
Manigat received 31.5%. While
news headlines focus on the “landslide”
victory for Martelly, he actually
received the support of only
16.7% of registered voters – far from
a strong mandate – as early reports
show Martelly with just 716,986
votes to Manigat’s 336,747.
Reports
indicate that turnout was even
lower than in the first round, when
it was a historically low 22.8%, and Martelly’s percentage of votes (as
well as Manigat’s) would have been
even smaller were it not for the use
of new electoral lists which removed
some 400,000 people from the rolls.
[The OAS suspiciously directed the
CEP to reduce the electorate estimate
from 4.71 million to about 4.29 million
three days after the poorly attended
Mar. 20 polling. - HL] Nevertheless, media reports
have largely ignored the issue of
turnout. AOL’s Emily Troutman reported
last night that “Martelly’s
67% of the vote is nearly unprecedented
in Haiti and a clear mandate
for his leadership.” Not only
is the 67% number misleading in
terms of his overall support, it is
also far from unprecedented (as
other reporters, like Tim Padgett of
Time, have also stated). In 1990,
Aristide was elected with 67% of the
vote, but with significantly higher
turnout. Aristide received over one
million votes in 1990 even though
there were over one million fewer
registered voters at the time. In
1995, Preval was elected with over
87% of the vote. In 2000, Aristide
received over 3.5 times as many
votes as Martelly did in the runoff
elections last month. Even Préval’s
most recent term began in 2006
with a greater mandate than Martelly’s;
in 2006, he received nearly
one million votes with 700,000
fewer registered voters. It is also worth noting that the
electoral process has been deeply
flawed from the beginning. Despite
an aggressive and expensive get-out-
the-vote campaign from the UN
and U.S., the second round suffered
from many of the same problems
as the first: low turnout and a high
number of irregularities. The legality
of the second round remains in
doubt given that a majority of the
CEP’s members appear never to
have verified the first round results. There were also widespread irregularities
in the Mar. 20 elections.
Although the US issued an Apr. 4
statement saying that irregularities
“were isolated and reduced”, some
15% of the tally sheets were quarantined
from preliminary results due
to fraud or other irregularities. This
is a greater portion excluded than in
the first round, and represents over
100,000 votes. It is clear that a candidate that
won only 4.6% of the electorate in
the first round and 16.7% in the second
round does not have a strong
mandate to rule. In such a context,
one would hope that Martelly would
seek to work with civil society and
with his political opponents, especially
those that were arbitrarily excluded
from the elections like former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s
Fanmi Lavalas, Haiti’s largest party. Ever since the earthquake,
Haitians have reached across political
lines to join each other in the
urgent tasks of helping their neighbors
to rebuild their communities,
and their nation. The continued political
marginalization of parties and
groups that are supported by Haiti’s
majority can only detract from the
critical tasks at hand. |
