Concerns over Haiti presidential elections impasse widens

Concerns over Haiti’s disputed presidential elections widened Monday when Catholic bishops and a group of pastors reinforced the position of an alliance of opposition presidential candidates demanding an inquiry into the vote.

The alliance of eight candidates led by second-place finisher Jude Celestin, and dubbed the G8, reiterated their demand for an independent commission to verify the Oct. 25 presidential vote amid allegations the balloting was tainted by “massive” fraud and irregularities.

The group in a signed communique issued late Sunday also are demanding sweeping changes in the police hierarchy and electoral system ahead of next month’s planed presidential runoff. Should those changes not occur, they said, they will be left with no other choice but to force a transition government to oversee new elections in Haiti.

“The G8 is convinced that honest, free, transparent and democratic elections cannot be obtained under the presidency of Joseph Michel Martelly without changes in the (Provisional Electoral Council), without changes in some units of the (Haiti National Police) and the command at departmental offices, and without the end of reprisals and repression by police against peaceful demonstrators,” the candidates wrote.

The communique set off a chain reaction Monday with the PHTK party of government-backed presidential candidate Jovenel Moise canceling a news conference to announce the official launch of his campaign. Prime Minister Evans Paul also entered the fray by meeting with the Private Sector Economic Forum, which has also quietly called for an inquiry into the vote.

Celestin, meanwhile, issued his own letter Monday afternoon, informing elections officials he would not be attending a Wednesday meeting. He noted that he was happy to meet as long as the proposed agenda addressed a number of issues both he and his G8 coalition have raised.

The Catholic and Protestant churches, which both have representatives on the nine-member Provisional Electoral Council, known as the CEP, also broke their silence on the impasse.

“Respect for human rights has regressed, democracy is at risk and the country’s future is uncertain,” the Rev. Ernst Pierre Vincent said on behalf of the Conference of Haitian Pastors, or COPAH, in a strongly worded statement. Vincent called the CEP’s decision to publish the final presidential results despite the allegations that the vote was tainted by “massive” fraud and irregularities, “a plot to topple the country into utter anarchy.”

Catholic bishops, meanwhile, called on the council to “reveal the truth about what really happened and who discredited the results,” and to provide more transparency in the electoral machine and at the vote Tabulation Center. Bishops also called on the council to be impartial and the police to be apolitical in its practices.

Two presidential candidates participating in protests were recently hurt when police fired on the crowds to disperse them. Protesters, meanwhile, have been complaining about arrests and intimidation by a specialized police unit.

The candidates’ statement comes after days of meetings and speculation about whether Celestin will accept to go into the Dec. 27 presidential runoff against Moise.

Should Celestin withdraw, as some have called on him to do, Haiti’s electoral law says the third-place finisher, former Sen. Moise Jean-Charles, would move up in the runoff slot. And should he decline, it would go to the fourth-place finisher, Dr. Maryse Narcisse, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s handpicked choice. While Jean-Charles is a member of the G8 and a signatory on the letter, Narcisse is not and hasn’t signed.

In all, there were 54 presidential candidates in the race. A banana exporter with no political experience, Moise has denied the fraud allegations and pushed back calls for his removal.

CEP President Pierre-Louis Opont on Monday minimized the G8 letter, and noted that Celestin has not officially withdrawn. Opont reiterated that the law doesn’t provide for the CEP to form an independent verification commission.

The CEP announced the final election results last week pitting Celestin, the former head of the state construction agency, against Moise after the National Offices of Electoral Litigation, or BCEN, rejected Narcisse’s demands that Moise be removed for fraud.

Narcisse was one of two candidates who legally challenged their standing in the preliminary results. During a random check of about 10 percent of the tally sheets at the vote Tabulation Center warehouse in Port-au-Prince, all were found to have had either fraudulent votes or discrepancies that should have invalidated them.

Instead of ordering a deeper verification, the five-member judges of the BCEN ordered that the discovered tallies be removed from the final results.

“The G8 deemed it to be unacceptable that the CEP published these results before it recognized the existence of massive fraud in the process; without seeking to determine on the one hand, the scale of the fraud and, secondly, to identify the fraudsters and applying sanctions prescribed by the electoral decree,” the candidates said.

This story was originally published November 30, 2015 at 11:55 PM with the headline "Concerns over Haiti presidential elections impasse widens."