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While Haitian President
Michel Martelly has
unilaterally scheduled
long-delayed elections for Oct. 26, 2014, the
composition of the electoral council continues
to cause controversy in Haiti. The current
problems stem from the
deeply flawed electoral
process in 2010 that saw Martelly
emerge victorious after the
intervention of the
international community. There have
yet to be elections since then, with one-third
of the 30 member Senate having their terms
expire in 2011 while some 130 local mayors have
been replaced by Martelly appointments.
Another
one-third of the Senate and the entire lower
house will see their terms expire in January
2015 if elections are not held. In a
“frequently asked
questions” document released last
week, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in
Haiti (IJDH) provides a legal analysis of the
reasons behind the delays and why the current
electoral council is unconstitutional. In an
accompanying press release, IJDH notes:
“According to Mario Joseph, managing lawyer for
the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, ‘Prompt
elections are much needed, but elections will
only remedy Haiti’s political crisis if they are
run fairly by a constitutionally-mandated
electoral council. President Michel Martelly has
delayed elections for three years because he
does not want to lose the political control he
has enjoyed without full parliamentary
oversight.’ Joseph explains that ‘The current
Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) put into
place by President Martelly per the El Rancho
Accord is unconstitutional.’ The El Rancho
Accord, which rules the government’s plan for
elections, has not been approved by Parliament
and the procedure for selecting a CEP conflicts
with the Haitian Constitution. The CEP only has
seven of the required nine members due to these
legitimacy concerns. Parliamentarians and
political opposition call the El Rancho Accord a
political coup d’état.”
Despite the
problems associated with the “El Rancho Accord,”
the international community [i.e. nations and
international institutions under the sway of
Washington - HL] has been
supportive of the
process. After praising the accord in
March, the UN issued a statement in early May,
co-signed with the “Friends of Haiti” grouping
of countries, warning “that certain important
decisions to advance toward the holding of the
elections have yet to be made.” Days later
Martelly announced the formation of the
electoral council, unilaterally. In early June,
the date of Oct. 26 was announced by the
government, even though the electoral body is
tasked with scheduling elections. Last week,
after meeting with Martelly, the Secretary
General of the
OAS committed
“to back the holding of free and fair elections,
in a process planned for October.” The OAS also
said they would send an electoral observation
mission.
The
international community is also providing the
lion’s share of the funds for the election. IJDH,
for its part, has called on the U.S. and other
members of the international community to
“support rule of law and democracy by
conditioning election funding on a lawful and
independent electoral council that can run fair
and inclusive elections.” Haiti’s last several
elections have been criticized for not being
inclusive, as several political parties –
including the most popular, Fanmi Lavalas – have
been arbitrarily kept off the ballot under
various pretexts. The U.S. has
pledged $10 million
toward the elections, but a review of contract
spending shows that a significant portion of
this has already been allocated and spent in
coordination with a previous electoral body that
no longer exists. In April of 2013, USAID
awarded $2.3 million to the International
Federation of Electoral Systems (IFES) and the
National Democratic Institute (NDI) for
“electoral process support.” In April 2014, the
award was raised to $3.4 million. An
IFES press release
from October 2013, well before elections had
been scheduled, notes that the organization had
signed a memorandum of understanding with the
Transitional College of the Permanent Electoral
Council (CTCEP) to provide technical assistance.
The CTCEP has since been replaced by the
electoral body that emerged from the
controversial “El Rancho Accord.” Repeated
requests for comment to clarify IFES’s support
have yet to be answered.
Additionally, a
USAID fact sheet
reports that $6.5 million will go toward
“pre-election planning and capacity building for
the” CTCEP. Those funds are part of a
multi-donor project run
by the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP). Previously called “Support to Electoral
Process in Haiti: 2012-2013”, the only recent
update to the project’s webpage has been to
change to dates to “2013-2014.” Overall, the
UNDP project will have a budget of $32 million
and had already spent over a $1 million as of
October 2013. It remains unclear if the donors -
the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the EU -
have already deposited their contributions with
the UNDP.
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