CEP continues mismanagement and execution of electoral coup

CEP continues mismanagement and execution of electoral coup

After lobbying Washington, the CEP President Gaillot Dorsainvil went to Venezuela to observe and learn how to manage the November 28 elections in Haiti. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a key ally of President Preval and has instituted a dictatorship in Venezuela controlling the media and the billions of dollars in oil revenue.



Meanwhile several issues continue to raise concerns among the political parties and various sectors of civil society. There is a strong belief throughout Haiti that the CEP is purposely creating disorder and chaos to facilitate the finalization of what everyone is calling an electoral coup (see: http://lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=83828&PubDate=2010-09-22 ). Despite the assurances provided by the number one CEP supporter, UN Haiti Chief, Edmond Mulet, all Haitians are in agreement that this is not going to be an election. Rather, this election will be hijacked in order to keep in place Preval and his cronies. New developments this week include:



First, the CEP is trying to staff the polling stations. They want to hire 30,000 people for this operation. The procedures for hiring these people are not clear (see: http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article10022 ). Many questions remain unanswered: Will the partisan BEDs and BECs that are playing a key role in this process favor Preval’s party in the hiring? Will they have time to train these people about the contents of the electoral law and how to manage a polling station?



Second, access to electoral cards required by the electoral law continues to be a challenge. Citizens that lost their cards in January 12 and the new voters are having difficulties retrieving their cards. For example, in the South East Department, 235,702 have not been able to retrieve their cards despite showing up with the proper identification. The National Office of Identification (ONI) in that region can only provide 50-60 cards per day. On this issue there is a big gap between what the CEP and the OAS are saying and reality (see: http://lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=83820&PubDate=2010-09-21 ).



Third, the CEP is working on the ballots. However, 34 % of the candidates for president and congress have been linked to drug trafficking, corruption and kidnapping by human rights groups If they are already working on the ballot, it seems they have already dismissed this allegation without investigation or response to serious critics. (see: http://lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=83815&PubDate=2010-09-22 ).