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26181: Benodin: (Comments) Topics of the Weekly Radio Broadcasting (fwd)


From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Topics of the Weekly Radio Broadcasting
Orlando on September 2, 2005
Political issues
Contradictory declarations coming from the authorities of the Provisional Electoral Council (PEC), their hesitations related to its electoral calendar, force us to reiterate the question: Do they know towards whom, they have responsibilities, and on what, do they have the authority?
The number of stages being no longer the issue, but the sequence in which the election's stages will be executed, forces us to raise the question: Does it matter? There is nothing officially confirmed until now, but one speaks already about November 20, 2005 and January 3, 2006, as dates appointed by the PEC for the organization of the first and second turns of the presidential and legislative elections. As for the local authority's and the municipality's elections, they are pushed back until January 22, 2006. The question is: Is there a political reason for the reversal of the electoral sequence, starting from the top? Why one wants to have initially, the Head of State, senators and representatives, before the local authorities? This decision, intentionally or not, is the unequivocal expression of the will to maintain this nepotistic tradition: "Who wins, wins all. Who loses, loses all."
One does not need to be versed in politics to know that those who will have conquered the presidency and the legislative seats (the highest level of authority) will automatically confiscate the elections for the local authorities and of the municipalities (the lowest level of authority). Facing the difficult reality of a failed state and institutional deliquescence, by need and by reflex, to reestablish as quickly as possible the authority of the state, they will take the path of lease resistance, grabbing the traditional lever of the territorial control. Concerning election and electoral management, the PCE manages, the printing company controls, but the local authorities and the municipalities organize them. This decision makes it possible for the executive power to maintain it traditional control on all elections to come, by appointing its men to all elective local authority's positions. It is also necessary to have in mind that it is the department of the interior, a ministry of the executive branch that pays the local authorities and municipalities (wages and budget). Those local authorities without any political legitimacy are mire puppets in the hands of the executive. This constitutes moreover a severe handicap to the notions of decentralization and autonomy of the territorial communities prescribed by the Constitution.
It is obvious, that in all societies, when the political problems become too acute, everyone is interested in politics and wants to participate. All surveys show that the electorate of the cities and villages of the province and particularly that of the rural area want to choose their local authorities and municipal councils. They are people whom they know personally and trust. They are People who will directly affect their lives. After one half-century, where two repressive regimes appointed all the local authorities, it is not surprising that the citizens of the province and the rural area, for the first time want to emancipate themselves from the executive power, to use their voting rights to choose those by which they want to be governed. This need motivate the provincial and rural masses to seek new leadership, not through the conventional political parties, but through family and social networks and also through personal connections. However by driving back the elections of the local authorities and the municipalities, after the executive and legislative powers are officially known, it is from them in a nepotistic fashion, that the appointment of the local authorities and municipalities will come, robbing once more the provincial and rural masses of their rights to choose.
The primary responsibility of the PEC being to assure that the results of all elections are truthfully the expression of the general will; so that provincial and rural masses can with complete freedom express their political will without interference from the executive power, and to take part in a real process of democratization, it is necessary that they choose initially their leaders, before the emerging presidential and legislative powers are established. Otherwise it is the return to the status quo ante. To drive back the elections of the local authorities and the municipalities after those of the presidency and of the legislative, is the equivalent of the suppression of the voting rights of the provincial and rural masses. Their right to choose their political leaders will be usurped by the newly elected executive power. Already the fact that the registration process, such as it is organized and that it is functioning, allowing to the maximum, that less than 50% of the electorate to register, constitutes an obvious violation of the right to vote of the other half, which is unable to be registered, even if it wanted. Moreover the opacity and inaccessibility of the rural area expose the rural masses to have proportionally the majority of the non-registered voters.
The PEC while driving back the elections of the local authorities and of the municipalities at the second stage, serves the interests of the political class to the detriment of those of the provincial and rural masses. Firstly, the PEC protects the candidates and the political organizations, which do not have the vertical penetration of all the social layers at the national level, against the public embarrassment of their lack of political legitimacy. Secondly, the PEC offers to the parties which have the capacity to capture the presidency, the opportunity to seize in a traditional manner the political control of all the territorial communities. If one wants to perceive the elections of the local authorities and of the municipalities, as an electoral primary, to those of the presidency and of the legislative, so be it. They will probably avoid the atomization of the legislative power, by forcing political alliances and coalitions.
The determination of the provincial and rural masses to obtain at their level a pluralistic government for the first time, reflecting in reality the mosaic of their political interests, is basically beneficial to the establishment of the true Representative democracy in Haiti. In other words it is the beginning of the manifestation of a revolutionary political will of the masses which want to place their destiny in the hands of people that they know personally and whom they trust, without the interference of the executive power. What worries this PEC which is full of political party's members is that this determination of the masses to exercise, for the first time, their rights to choose, takes away this political lever from the hands of political parties to which these members of the PEC belong, and for the benefit of which they make their decisions. The natural reflex of self-preservation and the conscientiousness developed by these masses, after one half-century of repression by two despotic and violent regimes, manifest itself by a will to take charge of their own destiny. This must be understood, accepted and encouraged. If the PEC wants to invest in the establishment of Representative democracy, it cannot suppress this revolutionary movement of emancipation of the provincial and rural masses, to serve the interests of the political class and its political parties. The establishment of the Representative democracy in Haiti must pass through that path, so that it becomes operational, authentic and real. The elections of the local authorities and the municipalities should be first!