PORT-AU-PRINCE Haiti (CMC):
HAITI'S INTERIM authorities yesterday announced new measures aimed at ensuring the staging of credible elections in Haiti before the end of the year.
During a cabinet meeting on Monday, government authorities decided to appoint a super executive officer, entrusted with extended administrative powers to oversee the electoral process, now in a shambles.
PLANS ABANDONED
In the face of a variety of logistic and technical problems, government and elections authorities have abandoned their plan to hold a simultaneous presidential and legislative ballot on November 20.
Officials say the first round of the elections would take place in the second half of December.
The U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, said the nomination of a new election administrator and a new schedule for the elections could be decided during another cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
"We need someone who knows how to make things happen, how to determine, once the goals had been set, what are the logistic means that will be needed to achieve those objectives," Latortue said.
He said the candidacies of several administrators, who could fit the job, were being studied. The appointment of the new election manager will be followed by a series of nominations at lower levels of the election administration, according to government officials.
SECOND CHANCES
The government also plans to review the decree that governs the electoral process, particularly, to allow an important number of candidates for the Senate, dismissed under current rules, to have a chance to run.
Haitian authorities and the international community want the elections to be held in time to allow for the inauguration of a new elected leader by the constitutional deadline of February 7, 2006.
It will be the first presidential election since the controversial removal of Jean Bertrand Aristide in February last year. Aristide, who now resides in exile in South Africa, has accused the United States of engineering his removal, a claim that has been denied by Washington.
Taken from The Daily Gleaner, Wednesday October 12, 2005
