26585: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti struggles to put democracy back on rails (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The challenges are daunting
and the time short as impoverished Haiti struggles to organize a credible
vote and put an elected president in the National Palace by a Feb. 7
constitutional deadline.
     Thousands of poll workers must be hired and 3.4 million identification
cards that voters need to cast ballots must be distributed. Authorities are
planning to use horses and donkeys to carry ballots and voting material to
remote villages inaccessible by roads.
     The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti is stumbling toward its
first national elections since 2000 mired in political and gang violence,
patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers and still struggling to establish
a stable democracy after decades of dictatorship and military rule.
     The last official voting date set by Haiti's electoral council was
Nov. 20. Authorities have long conceded they cannot meet that date, but
have not set a new one.
     Mid-December -- possibly the 18th -- is the best current guess.
     Some analysts expect the first round of voting to be postponed until
early January, which may or may not leave enough time for a run-off, if
needed, and an inauguration on Feb. 7 as scheduled.
     The scramble is aimed at giving the turbulent Caribbean country of 8.5
million people an elected government to replace the one appointed when
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was run out of office on Feb. 29, 2004, by a bloody
rebellion and under pressure from foreign powers to quit.
     "If we don't have a new leader at the presidential palace by February
7, 2006, this country will face a catastrophic situation," said Guy
Philippe, a leader of the rebels who helped oust Aristide and now a
presidential candidate.
     Once a hero of Haitian democracy, Aristide was accused of despotism
and corruption in his second term and was forced into exile in South
Africa. A Haitian council of elders appointed an interim government under
Gerard Latortue, a Florida business consultant and former United Nations
official who became prime minister and has ruled without a parliament for
20 months.
     Elections officials have approved 35 candidates for president, notably
excluding Dumarsais Simeus, a wealthy Haitian-American businessman, on the
grounds that he is legally barred from running because he took American
citizenship.
     The controversy surrounding Simeus and the jailing of popular priest
Gerard Jean-Juste, heir apparent to Aristide's Lavalas political movement,
has led to accusations that Haitian authorities are trying to manipulate
the vote.
     Time is growing short for the sequence of events leading up to the
scheduled Feb. 7 inauguration.
     "More time will allow for better preparation. But it also will allow
for more artful chicanery," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington,
D.C.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
     Latortue is pushing for a first round by year's end. But others argue
that credibility is more important than the constitutional deadline.
     "The electoral council won't be able to realize credible election in
such a short period of time, given all the technical problems it is
facing," said Christian Rousseau, a spokesman for the council of elders
that appointed Latortue and serves as an advisory panel to the government.
     "The essential now is not to try to meet a deadline at any cost,"
Rousseau said. "Most importantly, we need to organize democratic and
credible elections, whose results won't rejected by the population or
challenged by rival candidates."
     Susan Purcell, director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the
University of Miami, said Haiti desperately needs free and fair elections
to put it back on a democratic track and shore up foreign support.
     "Is the situation perfect to hold elections? No," she said. "But I
think an elected government will be seen as more legitimate -- if you have
a sufficiently credible electoral process."





 REUTERS