In an atmosphere of expectation and tension, Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council is due to announce preliminary results today from the troubled presidential and legislative elections held on November 28 in the Caribbean nation.
The United Nations-supported polls were marked by voting problems, fraud allegations and sporadic violence. They went ahead as the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere was battling a raging cholera epidemic and still struggling to recover from a devastating January earthquake.
The presidential contest, involving several frontrunners out of a field of 18 candidates, is widely expected to go to a deciding second round run-off between the top two vote winners, provisionally set for January 16. To win in the first round, a candidate must have more than 50 per cent of the votes.
Protests surrounding last month’s vote, including several in the capital Port-au-Prince led by some candidates who want the elections cancelled due to alleged massive fraud, have raised doubts over whether the internationally backed elections can produce a stable new leadership in Haiti.
One of the presidential frontrunners identified by opinion polls, musician Michel Martelly, added to the strained atmosphere on Monday by warning he would not accept a result that put Preval protege Jude Celestin, a government technocrat, among the top vote winners.
“If the second round is between myself and Mr Celestin, we will protest that, we will contest that,” Martelly, a popular star of Haiti’s Kompa dance music who is known as “Sweet Micky,” told a news conference in Port-au-Prince.
Martelly has repeatedly accused outgoing President Preval and Celestin of trying to steal the election through fraud, hence his refusal to accept a result that puts Celestin, who is tipped to be among the frontrunners, into the run-off.
Caribbean media reports citing unofficial results have predicted a run-off between Martelly and another frontrunner, opposition matriarch and former first lady Mirlande Manigat.
Martelly, who had originally been part of the group of candidates denouncing fraud and calling for the annulment of the elections but later recanted, has shown himself capable of mobilizing thousands of boisterous supporters in the streets.
In comments defying appeals by the UN and international observers to avoid inflammatory declarations and respect electoral authorities, Martelly said he expected the results to show him either winning in the first round or going through to the run-off. “We are also telling those in power that we will not remain with our mouths shut if the results do not reflect the votes of the people,” Martelly added.
Preval and Celestin’s Inite (Unity) coalition has accused Martelly, Manigat and the candidates’ group repudiating the polls of trying to orchestrate “an electoral coup d’etat”.
Analysts said the war of words and street protests did not bode well for maintaining political stability after the elections, especially if the electoral process was extended into a second round in January. “It doesn’t help … The legitimacy of the Nov. 28 polls in public discourse in Haiti is effectively continuously being challenged, and that of course in itself is a highly problematic situation,” said Markus Shultze-Kraft of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
“Depending on what we will hear tomorrow … it will in all probability lead to a run-off in January,” added Shultze-Kraft, who heads the institute’s governance team.
