PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Impoverished Haiti, long afflicted by political turmoil and natural disasters, will hold presidential and legislative elections on Sunday under the scourge of a deadly cholera epidemic.
With dozens of cholera victims dying each day and the death toll climbing well over 1,250, Haitians are being asked to elect a new president, a 99-member parliament and 11 members of the 30-seat Senate to lead the recovery of the Caribbean nation following a crippling January earthquake.
Reports that Nepalese UN peacekeepers brought the cholera to Haiti — a theory rebuffed as inconclusive so far by the United Nations — have triggered anti-UN riots and protests, complicating both the task of organizing the polls and the struggling international aid response to the cholera outbreak.
Here are some questions and answers about the elections:
Can Haiti hold successful elections under such conditions?
Haiti’s government has not moved to postpone the polls and Edmond Mulet, the head of the 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), says the logistical, technical and security aspects are in place to hold credible elections.
But the raging cholera epidemic has created a new national emergency for Haiti, stirring anger, fear and uncertainty among its population of 10 million who are already traumatized from the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people.
Election campaigning was cut back in the central regions worst affected by the cholera and was further disrupted in the north by several days of anti-UN riots last week in which at least two people were killed and dozens wounded.
UN personnel have been helping to set up polling stations and with the distribution of ballot papers. But their logistical resources have been stretched as planes, helicopters, trucks and troops are also needed to assist the UN-led international cholera response which aid workers say is currently not enough to stem the epidemic.
The violent anti-UN riots in the northern city of Cap-Haitien have raised questions about whether the UN peacekeepers can effectively fulfil their electoral security role, if they themselves are the targets of attacks.
UN officials blame the anti-UN attacks on criminal and political “spoilers” bent on sabotaging the Nov. 28 elections.
Some politicians wonder whether voters will participate when they are preoccupied with escaping the cholera and eking out a daily livelihood in a country with an economy shattered by the earthquake 10 months ago.
Several of the 19 presidential candidates have called for the vote to be postponed. But UN mission chief Mulet says “the vast majority of Haitians want elections.”
Many politicians and analysts say the risks of not holding elections in the volatile country and the dangers of creating a political vacuum far outweigh the humanitarian, logistical and security challenges of going ahead with the polls.
“Neither the earthquake, nor the cholera can stop the elections,” Mirlande Manigat, a former Haitian first lady and one of the leading presidential candidates, told Reuters.
Can the vote be free, fair and transparent?
Apart from the organizational challenges of the Nov. 28 elections, the polls also face credibility issues in a country where electoral politics have for years been polarizing and contentious, and often chaotic and violent.
Doubts have been cast on the impartiality of the electoral authority, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), which has registered 19 presidential candidates, 120 Senate and 900 Chamber of Deputies candidates, and 66 political parties.
“Unresolved discord between the executive and opposition parties over the CEP’s composition and perceived bias in favour of outgoing President Rene Preval adds to the credibility challenge,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report last month on the Haitian electoral process.
A group of US Democratic lawmakers also expressed concerns in October that the electoral council had excluded from the polls candidates from more than a dozen parties, including the country’s largest, Fanmi Lavalas, loyal to exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The lawmakers told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that “running transparently unfair, exclusive elections, with the support of the international community” could be a “recipe for disaster” for the future of Haiti.
