Michel Martelly, Aristide's weak imitator
Kim Ives
Guardian UK
22 March 2011 20.30 GMT
'Sweet Micky' Martelly is tipped to win a presidential vote the majority of Haitians boycotted. Aristide's return is the real story
Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the real winner of Haiti's 20 March presidential and deputy runoffs as the majority of Haiti's 4.7m voters shunned choosing between a vulgar pro-coup konpa musician, Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, and a professorial former First Lady, Mirlande Manigat, for president. Both candidates share rightwing histories (supporting the 1991 and 2004 coups d'état against Aristide) and programmes (most tellingly, reactivation of the Haitian army, which Aristide demobilised in 1995).
Most polling stations had only light turn-out. Any voting lines observed around the capital, Port-au-Prince, and its tent-strewn suburbs were due to administrative delays and irregularities (which were widespread), including a lack of ballots, finger-marking ink or poll workers. One station had ballots for a 2009 senate race delivered. Some polls opened up to four hours late.
Our random sampling of final vote tallies at four polling stations (each composed of several "voting bureaus") in Cité Soleil, Delmas and Lalue revealed that only 17.7% of their registered voters turned out to vote. That participation rate is well below the almost 23% rate of the dramatically flawed 28 November first round, which already marked a record low for Haiti, and all Latin America, since such record-keeping began over 60 years ago.
An OAS poll observer said that turnout in Arcahaie and Cabaret, two rural towns north of the capital, was only about 25%. The random samples showed Martelly leading Manigat by about three to one. The elections took place despite the fact that the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) never voted to authorise a second round. This illegality was "one of our concerns", OAS/Caricom observer team chief Colin Granderson told journalists the evening before the election. That "concern" about the law didn't stop the election though.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/22/haiti-jean-bertrand-aristide?CMP=twt_gu