The first round election results are (finally) in…
Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat have passed to the second round. The original results were Manigat and Jude Celestin (the party-backed candidate), after much contestation, observation by the OAS (which also concluded that Martelly and Manigat were supposed to pass into the second round) and pressure from the international community (cancellation of visas, threats of aid cuts), we have these results that closely resemble what the real results were supposed to be.
What happens now? The parliament is majority INITE. When the people wanted these results they were entirely ignored but once the international community got involved, we got these results. Why did it have to get to that point? Why the blatant fraud in the first place? That was a waste of everyone’s time and money that we already don’t have. Yes, we have somewhat what the people wanted but at the sake of our sovereignty. It was President Preval himself who summoned the OAS for an observation, they didn’t ask to be part of our electoral process. If we didn’t panhandle to the international community to do the most basic democratic process, elections, Hillary Clinton would never have felt the need to travel to Haiti to make sure the OAS reports were followed through. The Haitian people KNEW the right answer, why weren’t they heard?
The circus around the elections set a horrible precedent for democracy in Haiti. Now let’s hope that the future elected LEADER will at least start to change this dependence cycle.
