Caribbean & Central America - August 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

With less than a week until the 9 August first round of legislative elections electoral concerns – not just regarding the legislative vote but also the 25 October presidential first round – are multiplying. Last month a local civil society group, Observatoire Citoyen pour l’Institutionnalisation de la Démocratie (Ocid), released its first report since the official launch of campaigns on 8 July which warned of a “significant deterioration” in the electoral process.

The Ocid – which comprises a consortium of civil society groups including l’Initiative de la Société Civile (ISC) and Centre Œcuménique des Droits Humains (Cedh) - carried out an evaluation of the electoral environment between 29 June and 7 July. In its report it flags up two major concerns – insecurity and the slow pace of recruiting polling staff. As regards the former point, the report pointed to attacks against Bureaux Electoraux Communaux (BEC) – the official body tasked with resolving electoral disputes at the communal and departmental level. In particular the Ocid report noted attacks against BEC offices in the towns of Petit-Goâve in Ouest department; in Terrier-Rouge, Nord-Est Department; and in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord and Quartier-Morin in Nord department.

These concerns add to existing security fears regarding the electoral process. On 7 July Sandra Honoré, the head of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah) issued a statement expressing such concerns after an employee of the provisional electoral council (CEP), Wikenson Bazile, was shot dead two days earlier while walking in the capital, Port-au-Prince with his son and nephew. Honoré called for the police to launch a full investigation.

As regards the Ocid’s other chief concern - the slow pace of recruitment of electoral staff, the report also notes that just three of ten local electoral councils – Bureaux Electoraux Départementaux (BED)- and 19 of the 34 BEC offices visited confirmed that the recruitment of members for polling stations was underway. It also notes that “delays were even more marked in the case of the registration of supervisors (only two of 10 BEDs observed and one of 34 BECs visited had begun the process)”.

Funding concerns

As well as the concerns raised by the Ocid, doubts as to whether there is sufficient funding to cover the cost of staging the elections (which include a second round of legislative elections, two rounds of presidential elections and local elections) have also emerged in recent weeks.

On 16 July Haiti’s Prime Minister Evans Paul met senior international officials like Honoré at the UN headquarters in New York where he said that the government led by President Michel Martelly, had allocated US$6m for election security and another US$10m for political party financing, “in addition to the other substantial financial contributions made in support of the electoral process”. However, on 22 July the local press reported that the government only published the formula for the money’s disbursement, with no timeline for the distribution of funds.

There have been more general concerns about covering the costs – at the same meeting, the international press cited Pierre-Louis Opont, the CEP president, as saying that Haiti needed US$31m to cover the costs of the elections. Meanwhile the previous week Thomas Adams, the US State Department’s special coordinator for Haiti told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Western Hemisphere that US$50m would be necessary to cover the elections.

• Observer missions

Both the Organisation of American States (OAS) and European Union (EU) are sending delegations to observe Haiti’s elections.