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

Initial optimism that the 25 October elections for the first presidential round, second round of legislative elections, and 140 mayoral seats were an improvement on the 9 August first round of legislative elections – the first test for the provisional electoral council (CEP) - has proven short-lived. Since then, widespread allegations of fraud have emerged, accompanied by protests against CEP’s handling of the electoral process. The final results from the presidential first round – which confirmed a run-off scheduled for 27 December between Jovenel Moïse, of President Michel Martelly’s Parti Haïtien Têt Kalé (PHTK) and Jude Célestin, of the Ligue Alternative pour le Progrès et l’Emancipation Haïtienne (Lapeh) - have met with widespread rejection, including from Célestin and seven other presidential candidates.

On 24 November, the CEP announced the final presidential first round results which gave Jovenel Moïse 32.76% of the vote (508,761 of 1,553,131) to 25.29% for Célestin – meaning that neither candidate managed the 50% +1 of the vote or – since an amendment to electoral legislation made this year – a 25 percentage point lead over their nearest competitor. Third, with 14.3%, was Jean Charles Moïse (Petit Dessaline), followed by Maryse Narcisse, from the party of populist former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991; 1994-1996; 2001-2004), Fanmi Lavalas (FL), who took 7.0%. The other 50 candidates made up the remainder.

Jovenel Moïse’s victory was in-line with the results of a survey by Miami-based Integrated Communications and Research (ICR) which interviewed 1,362 people. However, two other surveys would appear to challenge this result. One pre-electoral survey by local private think-tank Bureau de Recherche en Informatique et en Développement Economique et Social (Brides), which interviewed 11,000 people, had shown Célestin, the former head of the state-owned construction company Centre National des Équipements (CNE), as the frontrunner [RC-15-11].

Another, by Brazil’s Igarape Institute, released on 19 November and which was based on interviews with over 1,800 voters from 135 voting centers throughout all of Haiti’s ten departments, also revealed a very different picture. According to the Igarape survey, 37.5% of respondents indicated they had voted for Célestin while 30.6% voted for Jean Charles Moïse and 19.4% for Narcisse. Just 6.3% said that they voted for Jovenel Moïse.

Rejection of the results

Célestin, who ran in the 2010 contest for Inité, the party of former President René Préval (2006-2011), before being controversially excluded from the second round, wasted little time in rejecting the results which he described as a “ridiculous farce”. Only two presidential candidates (out of the 54) have filed official complaints – Narcisse and Vilaire Cluny Duroseau of Mouvman pou Endepandans Kiltirèl Sosyal Ekonolik ak Politik an Ayiti (Meksepa), who took just 0.08% of the vote. Célestin’s campaign spokesperson, Jean-François Chamblain, told the Miami Herald that the presidential candidate had opted not to present a formal challenge as “we don’t have any confidence that the outcome would be any different”.

Even before the nine-member CEP announced its results, it had already come under question. Ahead of the 25 October vote, CEP member Néhémy Joseph resigned, citing transparency-related concerns. Another CEP member, Jaccéus Joseph, told the international media that he refused to sign off on the results from the 25 October elections, again citing the lack of transparency over vote tabulation. On 3 November, eight presidential candidates, including Célestin, Jean-Charles Moïse, Eric Jean Baptiste (Mouvement Action Socialiste), Jean Henry Céant (Renmen Ayiti), Sauveur Pierre Etienne (Oganizasyon Pep kap Lite), Samuel Madistin (Mouvement Patriotique Populaire Dessalinien), Steven Benoît (Konviksyon) and Mario Andrésol (Indépendant), called for the CEP to set up an independent committee to investigate the allegations of fraud.

These concerns regarding fraud (see sidebar) have since been expressed in a damning 50-page report on the 25 October vote, released on 12 November by the so-called ‘Coalition’ – a group of four prominent civil society organisations: Réseau National de Défenses des Droits de l’Homme (RNDDH); Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (Sofa); Conseil National d’Observation Électorale (CNO) and Conseil Haïtien des Acteurs Non Étatiques (Conhane). The Coalition, which deployed 1,640 observers to 76.59% of the 1,508 voting centres, found that “massive fraud took place…which could not have been possible without the active participation of the CEP”. The Coalition also called for the appointment of an independent commission to verify the results.

The CEP is proving intransigent, however. On 16 November, after meeting with the eight presidential candidates, the CEP denied their latest request for an independent commission to be set up to verify the preliminary results. The CEP’s refusal on this count has since triggered protests. On 18 November, Jean-Charles Moïse and Benoît were injured after Haiti’s national police (PNd’H) used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protests which took place outside the CEP in Pétionville, a commune and suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince, and other parts of the country such as Cap-Haïtien, the capital of Nord department. Meanwhile, Céant was also reportedly detained and threatened with arrest. Two days later, one person was killed following clashes in Delmas, Ouest Department, where protests have also been taking place. This led Sandra Honoré, the head of the United Nations (UN) Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah), to issue a statement condemning the violence. Minustah had, along with the US, the European Union and the Organization of American States (OAS) initially indorsed 25 October voting day as an improvement on the 9 August elections.

And in the legislature?

On 8 November, the CEP revealed partial results from the legislative second round which suggested that, as had previously been the case, no party would have a majority in either house.

With 25 contests still to be re-run on 27 December, following violence and other irregularities which took place in the first round, on the preliminary legislative results, the PHTK looks set to have won at least 33 seats in the newly expanded 118-seat lower chamber of congress (including the four it won outright on 9 August). However the PHTK counts among its allies Konvansyon Inite Demokratik (KID) of Prime Minister Evans Paul (which won nine); Steeve Khawly's Reseau Nationale Bouclier Haitien (Bouclier) which won six; Ayiti An Aksyon (AAA) of Martelly advisor Youri Latortue which won three; and the Consortium of Guy Philippe, the man who led the armed revolt that brought down Aristide in February 2004, which won three.

Meanwhile, Préval’s new party, Plateforme Vérité, whose presidential candidate Jacky Lumarque was controversially excluded from the contest, will have at least 18; Inite (four deputies) and Lapeh (four deputies). FL will have seven while its allies Renmen Ayiti will have three deputies, and Pitit Dessalines, one.

As regards the 30-seat national senate [for which two thirds of the seats were up for grabs], Vérité took two, PHTK one (although its allies KID took three, Bouclier took one and AAA took one), and FL took one of the 12 seats so far declared.

• Municipal votes

According to the preliminary municipal results, Michel Martelly’s Parti Haïtien Têt Kalé (PHTK) won 37 of the 140 mayoral races, including in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Participation was extremely low. On official figures, turn-out was just 26.5%. In Port-au-Prince for example, the PHTK candidate, Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, won with 14.06% of the vote, defeating Ralph Youri Chevry of Jude Célestin’s Ligue Alternative pour le Progrès et l’Emancipation Haïtienne (Lapeh), by 10,308 votes to 9,969.

• Fraud claims

While the fraud allegations vary, most centre on the 915,675 accreditation passes handed out by the provisional electoral court (CEP) to political party monitors and observers which enabled them to vote wherever they were present, even if they were not on the electoral list. According to local and international press reports, a black market emerged around these passes which ended up selling for as little as US$2.00 on the day of the 25 October election.