Robert BuddanHAITI IS scheduled to have elections on Tuesday, February 7. Elections have been rescheduled four times since November last year, so nothing is certain. Haiti is trying to make the best of a
situation in which it could find itself holding its worst organised elections for a virtually ungovernable country. It will badly need CARICOM's help. The first thing Caribbean governments have to decide next week is whether the elections are sufficiently free and fair.
Caribbean governments will then have to consider how to deal with the new administration, should they accept the election results. The front-runner in Haiti's 35-man presidential race is Rene Preval. CARICOM will welcome Preval who established a reputation for being an honest and able administrator when he was president from 1996 to 2001. As a candidate with backing from Lavalas supporters, Preval would compensate for the forced removal of Lavalas
president, Bertrand Aristide.
SUPPORT FOR PREVAL
Rene Preval is the likely winner of the presidential elections on Tuesday. The most recent CID-Gallup poll showed him with 37 per cent support, way ahead of his two nearest rivals, Charles Baker, 10 per cent, and Marc Bazin, eight per cent. Preval was Aristide's prime minister in 1991, succeeded Aristide as president from 1996 to 2001, and then made way for Aristide's return to the presidency.
During that period, Preval effectively retired from politics, living in solitude in rural Haiti. Preval has reluctantly returned to the political stage. He entered the presidential campaign just two months before elections were due in November 2005. He did so when Haiti's poor needed a candidate they could trust. Aristide was in exile, his prime minister, Yvon Neptune, was in jail without charge, and the most popular potential candidate, Father Gerard Jean Juste, was also locked up without charge and prevented from registering his candidacy. Preval was encouraged by mass peasant organisations to register his candidacy. He became the candidate of Lespwa, not Lavalas, which is officially boycotting the elections. However, he is the candidate getting strongest support from Lavalas sympathisers and Haiti's poor generally.
Preval is now 63 years old. He has made Haitian history by being the first democratically elected president to have completed his term and left office peacefully. He is an agronomist and that is important in a largely agricultural society. He is a quiet leader who believes in doing rather than talking. He is a more moderate leader than Aristide. It was during Preval's presidency that Haiti became a member of CARICOM. He is, therefore, well known among CARICOM and hemispheric leaders, and accepted as well-intentioned, honest and able.
PREVAL'S AGENDA
One of Preval's top concerns will be agriculture. He believes that the failure of agriculture and the rural economy is at the heart of Haiti's poverty. This poverty drives people to the cities, creating vast urban slums that breed
violence. In his first administration, Preval had cut the cost of fertiliser by half, hoping to stimulate Haitian agriculture. But that price has now jumped to four times the original cost. One of the first things he wants to do is cut fertiliser and other costs to make agriculture viable. He is the candidate of many peasant organisations and, therefore, has their support in this.
Preval also wants to disarm Haitian gangs and their criminal enterprises, whether those gangs are loyal to Aristide or to the opposition and their western sponsors. Without an army and a competent police force, Preval intends to rely on the United Nations peacekeeping forces and funds from international donors to restore law and order. Preval will have to re-establish state authority in large slum cities like Cite Soleil, which is virtually under the control of armed gangs. To do this, he will have to build the trust in the U.N. forces that many Haitians see as part of the international conspiracy to arrest pro-Aristide politicians and supporters.
Preval's other priority is the justice system. Haiti is notorious for having prisoners languishing in jail for years without charge or a court hearing. Justice reform would be politically astute anyway, since many Lavalas leaders and supporters make up large numbers of those arrested without charge in the past year. Preval intends to free hundreds of political prisoners. This is one area that will win Preval approval from Lavalas supporters.
MAKING IT ALL WORK
Preval is regarded as one of the few politicians who could reach across the spectrum of society and build consensus. But he would be doing so in a very difficult situation. The first thing to consider is his relationship with Aristide. Preval had proven during his
presidency that he was not a mere puppet and mouthpiece of Aristide. In the end though, his differences with pro-Aristide parliamentarians over whether to accept an International Monetary Fund plan made it difficult to command a workable policy consensus and this weakened his government. Preval's Lavalas supporters want to know if he will let Aristide return to Haiti (something the U.S. and the Haitian elite don't want), and what influence Aristide will have on Preval, whether Aristide remains in exile or not.
Preval has had little contact with Aristide in recent years; Aristide did not endorse his candidacy; and Preval has not said whether he will invite Aristide to return to Haiti, implying that this would be Aristide's decision with which he would not interfere. Preval has indicated that he wants to look to the future, that is, beyond Aristide and the past. Preval obviously wants to maintain some independence from Aristide even while he needs the support of Lavalas sympathisers.
There are other problems for Preval. Although he is the most popular candidate, he needs to win a majority of the votes cast. If he does not, a second round of elections has to be held in March. Many opposition candidates, including those of the Haitian elite, intend to unite to oppose him then. Further to this is the question of his support in the
legislature. Preval's party, Lespwa, is only putting up 78 candidates for the 110 legislative seats. Preval will likely have to rely on cooperation from other parties in the legislature, especially if Lespwa does not win a majority.
NO ELITE SUPPORT
Preval will not have Haiti's elite in his corner. He will have to depend on other sources of funding for his ambitious programme to place every child in school, create a functioning health care system and reform the judiciary. It is this same elite that rebelled against Aristide for raising Haiti's minimum wage and requiring the rich to pay their taxes. As for international donors, they have held up critical funds both under Preval's first administration and Aristide's last, creating crises in both.
Haiti needs new friendships and new funding. Jamaica and CARICOM can help to organise the Haitian diaspora and help Haiti to float a diaspora bond for development with the experience we have. Jamaica and CARICOM can help Haiti to cement Venezuela's generous benefits under PetroCaribe. CARICOM can help Haitians to benefit from health and education under the Bolivarian Initiative. We can reintegrate Haiti diplomatically and economically into the CSME. We can help Haiti to establish a tourism industry to earn quick foreign exchange.
CARICOM must now make sure that Haiti is not left to its warlords and 'the West' as in the past. CARICOM's governance machinery has a responsibility to ensure that the democratic failure of 2004 will not repeat itself.
Email the Department of Government at:
robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
