Oct. 26, 2014 Haitian Elections Cancelled
by The Sentinel

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (sentinel.ht) - Elections will not be held on Oct. 26, 2014 as a decree lacking the force of law by President Michel Martelly had suggested. This announcement was made by the controversial electoral council and confirms that the Head of State's maintenance of conditions not conducive to holding elections will be prolonged to four years.

The electoral process is stalled on the formation of a Provisional Electoral Council, as described in the Constitution of Haiti, Article 289. Currently there exists a "Provisional Electoral Council" in name, but in structure, it disenfranchises the civil society participation as described in Haiti's law.

 A quorum-breaking six Senators have made it sine qua non that a Constitutional electoral council, formed with the participation of civil society as described, be established before a vote on an Electoral Law to set elections takes place.

Michel Martelly has fought to manipulate the democratic and electoral institutions.

With unwavering financial and political support from a faction of foreign diplomats in Haiti calling itself the "Core Group", Haitian President Michel Martelly managed to withhold the organization of elections for more than three years.

In these circumstances, Haiti's election backlog will create a vacuum of legislative power and local government administration on Jan. 15, 2015, when the entire Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate, will join an earlier third of the Senate and all local and municipal seats, that had already fallen out of mandate and become empty seats.

A member of the "Core Group", the Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Albert Ramdin, invoked post-Jan. 15 Haiti, now being called the "dictatorship scenario". In declarations made on May 23, 2014, Ramdin said President Michel Martelly would be able to "rule by decree" in the absence of the Haitian legislature.

Proponents of democracy are shunning Ramdin's proposal as an unconstitutional overreaction that hasn't the political capital to maintain relative peace in Haiti.