The term of President Michel Martelly ended today, February
7. Because the Constitution does not provide a process for power transition
when elections are not finalized, Haitian political and international actors have
convened for the past two weeks to discuss how to move forward given the power
vacuum. Several scenarios were on the table: an agreement among the three
branches of government that Martelly remain in office, like former President
Preval did in 2011, to complete the elections (despite calls of the opposition
to ouster him); install the non partisan President of the Supreme Court or a
judge of this court, as was done successfully under the 1990 and 2006 electoral
crises; or, have the Prime Minister (or a newly appointed Prime Minister)
oversee a three month transition. Various political parties and organizations
put forward another 28 proposals for the transition each of them with their own
Provisional President and Prime Minister.
Given the Haitian’s political parties inability to reach a
consensus on a path forward on their own, the Organization of American States
(OAS) sent a mission to Haiti last week to facilitate a dialogue among political
actors for the transition and finalize the elections. Some of the actors wanted
a coup. An agreement was brokered
and the implementation starts today. The agreement includes:
1.
President farewell speech in parliament (Feb. 7)
2.
Parliament will acknowledge the void of the
Presidency (Feb. 7)
3.
Parliament will inform the Haitian people about
how a Provisional President will be selected (Feb.7)
4.
Parliament will name a bicameral commission to
work on the selection process; citizens will be able to submit their names to
the commission (Feb. 7)
5.
Parliament will vote for a new Provisional
President (TBD)
6.
After the new President is sworn in, s/he:
a. Confirm the current Prime
Minister of consensus or name a new one
b. Write to various sectors of Haitian society, in
accordance with Article 289 of the
Constitution, to form a new Provisional
Electoral Council in order to organize the runoff of the elections on April 24
– the date set by the agreement under the auspices of OAS and the
Democratic Charter (Feb. 11)
Without disciplined implementation, this agreement has the
potential to lead Haiti into permanent instability. If parliament chooses a
politician instead of a non-partisan Supreme Court judge, Haiti is in for
trouble. Undoubtedly, a politician who becomes President overnight without the
vote of the people will try to stay in power for at least three years by
annulling the elections, dissolving parliament and changing the constitution. Historically,
Supreme Court Judges have always followed the laws and the Constitution to the
letter and eschewed partisan politics. Several political leaders are hesitant
about the President of the Supreme Court because they claim he has a family
relationship with Jude Celestin, one of the candidates qualified for the
runoff. This is unverified.
Meanwhile sectors linked to political violence are taking
advantage of the power vacuum by creating an unstable environment in order to
seize power. Aristide sent into the streets two different types of operators.
First, his main spokeperson, Gerald Gilles, has been vocally advocating
that Aristide should be provisional President. They know clearly that the Constitution
precludes him from serving another term because he has already served two.
Second, the presence
of members of Haiti’s disbanded army in the streets of Port-au-Prince two days
ago fueled the fire. Aristide tried to take advantage of this situation by disguising
his chimeres (violent political
operators from the Lavalas party) as
former military during their attack on a transfer banks and a police precinct
in the town of Arcahaie, 30km from Port-au-Prince.
Aristide historically has
used these chimeres to carry out
kidnapping and drug trafficking in order to finance the party. Most of these
actors have been apprehended by the US Drug Enforcement Agency and tried in the
US. According to various testimonies from Arcahaie the person linked to this
attack is a chimere named Pa Bouke. The goal was to create more tension between
the populace and the members of the disbanded army. Martelly, for the past four
years, has refused to include the members of the disbanded army into the
country’s new defense force
oriented toward reconstruction. In the upcoming days, the country should expect
in to see similar violent actions from the Aristide camp. In the face of the
heightened violence, MINUSTAH, the UN mission in Haiti, has been completely
ineffective in maintaining security.
In addition to the violence, we are already seeing an
increase in corruption and political pay offs. Since yesterday, there is an full
scale assault on the newly convened parliament by the economic cartel known as
the Groupe de Bourdon, former
President Rene Preval, the drug cartels, Aristide and others – all trying to
buy the presidency. Preval like
Aristide is constitutionally precluded. All those efforts toward the transition
are weakened by a surfacing scandal involving the President of the Senate,
Jocelerme Privert. Many around the country are calling for his removal because
he falsified the amended constitution in 2009 according Haitian newspapers and
radios who investigated
the issue and is responsible for the La Scierie massacre in Saint Marc when he was Minister of the Interior.
Without support from the international community to isolate
the perpetrators of violence and corruption from the system, this – or any –
brokered agreement is doomed for failure and Haiti will slip back into chaos
for a decade or more. The OAS should actually leverage the Democratic Charter
and conduct an investigation identifying the damaging actors and remove them
from the process. The OAS did this successfully in
2001 when Aristide’s Lavalas burned down political parties headquarters. They
should also continue to foster the dialogue between the democratic actors
willing to sit at the table and negotiate in good faith. And finally, they
should ramp up their support for the electoral process by increasing technical
assistance to the CEP and strengthening the electoral observation mission.
The situation is fragile and the stakes are very high. Haiti
has some slight momentum in the past five years addressing the dire economic,
political and social situation of the country. Yet the Haitian political system
and Haitian political actors are unable to foster the democratic process on
their own. To protect the people of Haiti, the international community will
need to step in, yet again, to support democracy.
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