Pare kò nou pou siveye sak pral pase demen.

October 25, 2015 is it Election or Another Selection?

by Jean Yves Point-du-Jour, October 22, 2015

On Sunday October 25, 2015, the people of Haiti are expected to go to the polls. More than three million people are eligible to cast ballots for President, Senators, Deputies and Mayors.

Based on what has happened in elections in Haiti since 1986, there is no guarantee that a real election will take place where the winner will indeed be picked by the people of Haiti.

Let us look at the record.



In March 1987, the first election after the bloody dictatorial regime of the Duvalier ended in bloodshed. Many Haitians died at the polling stations exercising their constitutional rights to freely elect their leaders. Then the de-facto military regime selected Lesly Francois Manigat as President of Haiti in an electoral masquerade and threw him under the bus six months later in a coup d’état.

Again, in December 1990, the people of Haiti went to the polls and elected Jean Bertrand Aristide as President, but not without a struggle.



Jimmy Carter who came to Haiti as an Electoral Observer asked Aristide to give up the election to Marc Bazin who was the preferred candidate of the oligarchy and the international community, mainly the United States. But they could not buy the then electoral commission nor Aristide himself. Therefore, seven months later, under the George Herbert Bush, Sr. Administration, the democratically elected Aristide government was overthrown by a U.S. CIA-backed and orchestrated military coup d’etat. Thousands of Haitians were murdered by members of the defunct Haitian armed forces and CIA sponsored paramilitary groups such as FRAPH.

In 2004, during Aristide’s second election, the US funded the so-called civil society oppositions as well as the death squads, led by Guy Philippe and Louis Jodel Chamblain to take the Aristide government down. When they failed, George W. Bush, Jr., Colin Power and Kofi Annan presided over a back-up, Special Forces’ kidnapping of Aristide and the regime change that brought Haiti the current US occupation behind the UN and NGO humanitarian front.

In 2006, Rene Preval was given the presidency after popular protest broke out when it was rumored that the Electoral Commission was about to give the presidency to Lesly Francois Manigat.

Four years later, in 2010, former US President Bill Clinton picked Martelly to become president and used his wife’s influence as US Secretary of State to achieve his goal with the sanctioning of the Organization of American States and the blessing of the Obama Administration.

Strangely enough, it has been reported that one of the key actors in the 2010 election, Jude Celestin was told by the Clintons to give it up to Martelly, to keep quiet and he will be made president in the next election cycle. By the way, Jude Celestin is a candidate for president in the upcoming Sunday, October 25, 2015 vote after spending five years being quiet indeed.

In order to advance their goals, it was revealed in the Hillary Clinton emails that the violence that happened after the post elections of 2010 was financed by USAID. In August 9, 2015, after delaying repeatedly organizing elections during the past four years, an electoral masquerade was held that received once again the blessing of the international community, mainly the Obama Administration. Martelly knows very well how he was made president. The same conditions that led to the results of 2010 are present for the 2015 vote, if not worst when we have just witnessed a civilian massacre in Cite Soleil by a death squad corps within the national police called BOID. What can stop Martelly from selecting his successor. What can stop the US selecting another candidate that guarantees the U.S. status quo while giving the impression that the people of Haiti have indeed elected a new chapter, a real Haiti president?



It’s not possible to have real local elections while under foreign military rule. We are about to witness another selection one way or the other. Can Haiti afford to lose another five years as stated in the last Miami Herald editorial? Will the misery of the Haitian people continue or will the people rise up this time and say, “enough is enough?” Is October 25th, 2015 that turning point?

Jean Yves Point-du-Jour
October 22, 2015
Jean Yves Point-du-Jour is a Transportation Engineer Manager, better known as “Yves Dayiti.” Mr. Yves Point-du-Jour was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He lives in Maryland USA and works as a transportation engineer manager. He is a broadcaster and has produced and hosted the Haiti radio program, “Konbit Lakay” in Washington, D.C. for over 29 years. Contact email: youri44@hotmail.com.