PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Haiti’s leaders yesterday to adopt an internationally backed solution to an election dispute that threatens stability in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.
Clinton arrived in Port-au-Prince for talks with outgoing Haitian President Rene Preval and leading presidential candidates on a visit overshadowed by the unfolding political crisis in Egypt.
The U.S. secretary of state said she was delivering the message that Washington wants to see Haitian authorities enact recommendations by Organization of American States experts that revise disputed preliminary results from chaotic elections held on Nov. 28 in the poor, volatile country.
OAS experts, citing widespread irregularities in voting tallies from Nov. 28, have recommended that presidential candidate and popular musician Michel Martelly be included in a second-round runoff vote in March in place of government-backed candidate Jude Celestin.
Opposition matriarch Mirlande Manigat is already confirmed through to the runoff.
“We’ve made it very clear we support the OAS recommendations and we would like to see those acted on,” Clinton told reporters earlier on her plane in Washington just before it took off for the trip to Port-au-Prince.
“We want to see the voices and votes of the Haitian people acknowledged and recognized,” she said at Port-au-Prince airport on her arrival. She said this would help bolster Haiti’s reconstruction from a devastating 2010 earthquake.
As well as the United States, the United Nations and major western donors like France and Britain, along with the European Union, have made clear they also support the OAS recommendation for the runoff line-up.
Despite the OAS report and international pressure, Celestin, a government technocrat and protege of outgoing Haitian President Rene Preval, has not formally withdrawn from the race despite urging from his own INITE coalition to do so.
Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council has said it will announce on Wednesday the definitive results from the confused elections. The preliminary results announced last month triggered street riots by Martelly’s supporters, because Celestin was placed narrowly ahead of their candidate.
A small group of about 20 protesters at the airport yesterday carried signs in English reading “Secretary Clinton, Haiti did not have free and fair elections.”
“We are protesting for our right to a good election. We call for a cancellation of the election masquerade,” said one protester, Vanel Louis-Paul, 34.
