Jovenel Moise

Last month, the new Haitian president, Jovenel Moise, was inaugurated with a 55.67 percent of voters supporting him. He obtained this lead while campaigning against a staggering 26 other candidates. To foreigners, this would suggest he was the people’s choice and that his status as president would be unquestioned, yet the following Monday after the results were released, there were reports of gunshots and tires burning around Port-Au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. To the eyes of a foreigner, this protest would be regarded as a ragtag group of disgruntled voters, but this protest is a microcosm to the history of resentment born from the corruption in the Haitian electoral process (Pierre-Pierre).

During the 2010 election the current President, René Préval, had his chosen successor, Jude Célestine, advance to the runoff in second place (Johnston). However, due to the earthquake in Haiti that year, many people were displaced and could not vote. This caused a do over to take place. Préval asked the Organization of American States (OAS), the observers of the election, to analyze the results. They decided that Célestine should be replaced by Michel Martelly in the run off. However multiple sources reported that a small group from the American embassy had made the decision without the OAS experts, any statistical analysis, or recounts.

René Préval

It was revealed through emails released due to the Freedom of Information Act request that the American government worked with Haitian elites to replace Célestine with Martelly. Reginal Boulos, a businessman, wrote to Clinton’s top aid, Cheryl Mills that “on behalf of the Haitian private sector, I want to thank you for the commitment you have shown to Haiti”(Johnston).

Martelly became the next President of Haiti and during his reign the parliamentary terms lapsed. This made the Legislative branch malfunction which allowed him to rule by decree. Over four years, the Haitian government did not hold any elections even though the constitution required three; Martelly appointed local officials solely. He was then later replaced by a provisional government heading into the 2015 elections (Pierre-Louise).

Michel Martelly stands with his wife, Sophia

At the beginning of the 2015 election cycle, the name Jovenel Moise was barely recognizable. All he had ever been was a businessman in Haiti’s Nord-Est department and was the president of the local chamber of commerce. However, the Martelly government invested millions into his company which catapulted him into the lead and eventually led to Moise winning the election (Pierre-Louise).

This victory led to thousands of Haitians protesting in the streets, alleging that Martelly had used his political influence to favor Moise. There is evidence to support this claim. Even with improvement to the security and the electoral administration, the election had the lowest voter participation, 21 percent, for a national election in the Western hemisphere since 1945 (Haitian Times Editorial Staff). Many voters were robbed of their vote due to prevalent errors on electoral lists, difficulties accessing identity cards, and lack of voter education. Before the election, the leader of the National Identification Office (NIO) admitted that they lost track of 2.4 million activated but undistributed cards which opened the flood gates for trafficked identity card fraud(Pierre-Louise).

Martelly was not done with just stifling Haitians’ voting power. He changed the laws required to form a political party so that only a dozen people are needed to form one. This allowed dozens of political parties to be created facilitating special interests instead of people joining existing ones. Martelly did this in order to weaken political parties opposed to his own legislation and his management of the country. This also allowed most of the political parties to be headed by Martelly supporters who filled political party meetings (Pierre-Louise).

This also created chaos during the 2015 election when 65 candidates decided to run for the presidency and thousands of others for the National Assembly. After the provisional government took over for Martelly, most of the candidates dropped out, leaving only 25 to run for the presidency in 2016. From the 25, only 5 of them were able to mobilize the electorate. However, the opposition candidates only divided the vote between each other while those for Martelly were unified. This fact is further exemplified when the total vote of the next three candidates totaled to 200,000 more votes than Martelly (Johnston).

Due to the corruption within the election, a majority of Haitians did not bother to vote and stayed home. Haitians outside of Haiti send nearly a billion dollars of aid to their relatives, yet they do not send any to help rectify the political system (Pierre-Pierre). They have no way to vote in the election and know the system is corrupt so they do not bother to waste their money. It seems like the whole Haitian population is disenfranchised with the election and they know that any president is more of the same.

Bibliography

Ap, Tiffany and Jennifer Deaton. Haiti’s President steps down, leaving no successor. Port-Au-Prince, 7 February 2017. photo.

Johnston, Jake. Haiti’s Eroding Democracy. n.d. 16 March 2017. <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/haiti-election-democracy-neoliberal-clinton-jovenel-moise-martelly-aristide-preval-duvalier/>.

Jr., Francois Pierre-Louis. The Final Push Toward The Presidential Elections In Haiti. n.d. 16 March 2017. <http://haitiantimes.com/2016/10/10/the-final-push-toward-the-presidential-elections-in-haiti/>.

Pierre-Pierre, Garry. Diaspora Leaders And Haitian Counterparts Bluffing Each Other. n.d. 16 March 2017. <http://haitiantimes.com/2016/09/16/diaspora-leaders-and-haitian-counterparts-bluffing-each-other/>.

Pierre-Pierre, Gary. Jovenel Moise Is Elected President Of Haiti. n.d. 16 March 2017. <http://haitiantimes.com/2016/11/29/jovenel-moise-is-elected-president-of-haiti/>.

Préval, René. Photo. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.                   <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Preval?oasmId=113977>

Staff, Haitian Times Editorial. Lack Of Trust In Haiti Electoral System Overshadows Return Of Constitutional Rule. n.d. 16 March 2017. <http://haitiantimes.com/2017/02/16/lack-of-trust-in-haiti-electoral-system-overshadows-return-of-constitutional-rule/>.