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Haitian elections

nino_savatte

nino_savatte

No pasaran!
Haiti has gone to the poll in the firts round of its presidential election. The front runner is former president, Rene Preval who is a former ally of Aristide. But the US is hailing the election as a success. When I hear the US has hailed something as a success I usually get suspicious.
The US State Department has also declared the voting process free from fraud.

"The key here is that there is a high turnout. The Haitian people invested in this election process," state department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

However, in an implicit warning to Mr Preval - who once had strong links with Mr Aristide - the spokesman said the US expects the deposed leader to remain in exile in South Africa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4703138.stm
Click to expand...

The US is happy with the election of Preval so long as he doesn't allow Aristide to return.

I'd like to think that things will change for the better but I suspect the US has other ideas..and those ideas are at odds with the rhetoric it has used.
 
nino_savatte said:
Haiti has gone to the poll in the firts round of its presidential election. The front runner is former president, Rene Preval who is a former ally of Aristide. But the US is hailing the election as a success. When I hear the US has hailed something as a success I usually get suspicious.


The US is happy with the election of Preval so long as he doesn't allow Aristide to return.

I'd like to think that things will change for the better but I suspect the US has other ideas..and those ideas are at odds with the rhetoric it has used.
Click to expand...

Here's to hoping that the election does not go to a second round.

On an aside, Canada's Governor General is from Haiti.
 
spring-peeper said:
Here's to hoping that the election does not go to a second round.

On an aside, Canada's Governor General is from Haiti.
Click to expand...

I think it may go to a second round, given Haiti's unfortuante history. I know one thing for certain: any president will have to do business with the US...on US terms.
 
nino_savatte said:
I think it may go to a second round, given Haiti's unfortuante history. I know one thing for certain: any president will have to do business with the US...on US terms.
Click to expand...

I'm more concerned about an outbreak of violence it this has to go to a second round.

Let's see what happens before speculating on the US reaction.
 
spring-peeper said:
I'm more concerned about an outbreak of violence it this has to go to a second round.

Let's see what happens before speculating on the US reaction.
Click to expand...

US reaction and intervention is a foregone conclusion. The US has no interest in seeing genuine democracy take root in Haiti; it is far too valuable as a source of sweatshop labour and an ideal transfer point for international cocaine trafficking.
 
nino_savatte said:
US reaction and intervention is a foregone conclusion. The US has no interest in seeing genuine democracy take root in Haiti; it is far too valuable as a source of sweatshop labour and an ideal transfer point for international cocaine trafficking.
Click to expand...

:(
 
Well, it is true. You may think that I am being unkind or cruel but history has a nasty habit of repeting itself. Nothing has changed much in Haiti since US marines landed there in 1918 and set about creating artificial divisions based on ethnicity.
 
nino_savatte said:
Well, it is true. You may think that I am being unkind or cruel but history has a nasty habit of repeting itself. Nothing has changed much in Haiti since US marines landed there in 1918 and set about creating artificial divisions based on ethnicity.
Click to expand...

I know that History keeps repeating itself - I just keep hoping that the record gets changed once in a while.

Just like with Palestine, I sit with crossed fingers and hope for a change for the better.
 
DC's preferred candidate.

No prizes for guessing who that is.

Charles Henri Baker, 50, is a wealthy industrialist whose main support comes from Haiti's wealthy elite.

Mr Baker, an independent, has been a vocal critic of the current interim administration and before that of Mr Aristide's government.

He became actively involved in politics in 2003 and 2004 through the Group of 184 that opposed Mr Aristide and describes himself as being free from any association with Haiti's murky political past.

The latest opinion polls give him 10% support.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4685312.stm
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Baker runs sweatshops for various US companies like Sara Lee. He also has some rather close ties with Washington.
 
nino_savatte said:
No prizes for guessing who that is.



Baker runs sweatshops for various US companies like Sara Lee. He also has some rather close ties with Washington.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - I was just going over to find out who their fav was.

Sigh - run-off election. DAMN!!!

I really hope that they find a way to make a clear majority for one candidate stick, but now I doubt it.

Stupid Americans
 
The situation in Haiti is infinitely complicated, and there are many more actors involved than one would think from a cursory glance. For example, the real behind-the-scenes player there is not the USA but Canada. The UN troops there consist largely of Canadians, and the Canadians are in command. I believe that it was the Canadians who kidnapped Aristede two years ago. At the beginning of his term in office he was assigned a squadron of Canadian "bodyguards," two of whom I have met. Their attitude towards him was more like that of prison guards than bodyguards. Canada has its own foriegn policy agenda, and will not be easily pressured by the USA. There are all sorts of other people with their fingers in the pot as well. It truly is a fascinating, heroic country, and all right-thinking people wish it well.
 
phil, does your last sentence refer to Canada, or Haiti?

Canadian capital is pretty heavily dug into Haiti as well.
 
I found this on the bottom of an article about the Haitan elections:

The governments of Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina do not stand far from the communist leader Fidel Castro, while the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has become his most important ally. In Chile the female candidate of the central-left Michelle Bachelet won the presidential elections held in January 2006 and became the first female president of her country and South America to come to power by election. The “left-ruled” countries in the region are: Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Chile.
Click to expand...

article

I'm being to think I need to find a map next.
 
nino_savatte said:
No prizes for guessing who that is.



Baker runs sweatshops for various US companies like Sara Lee. He also has some rather close ties with Washington.
Click to expand...
he was quick to shout 'fraud' the the day too even though he only had something like 6% of the vote at the time when Preval had 60%. As if the long-suffering people of Haiti are going to be voting in their masses for a pro-USG sweat-shop owning arsehole any time soon :mad: :rolleyes:
 
The declared result is clearly bollocks. There's no way Preval would have got less than 50% in a fair count. More like 90%.
 
X-77 said:
he was quick to shout 'fraud' the the day too even though he only had something like 6% of the vote at the time when Preval had 60%. As if the long-suffering people of Haiti are going to be voting in their masses for a pro-USG sweat-shop owning arsehole any time soon :mad: :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
nino_savatte said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4711354.stm
Click to expand...

Same thing as mine :p except mine had this

Irregularities

About 125,000 ballots -- or 7.5 per cent of the votes cast -- have been declared invalid because of irregularities.

Another 4 per cent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the total -- making it harder for Preval to obtain the necessary margin.
Click to expand...

Nice to see you read my links :rolleyes:

I think that the Canadian media will be covering this one a bit closer than the BBC is. Our Governor General is from there and our peacekeepers are all over the place.
 
spring-peeper said:
Same thing as mine :p except mine had this



Nice to see you read my links :rolleyes:

I think that the Canadian media will be covering this one a bit closer than the BBC is. Our Governor General is from there and our peacekeepers are all over the place.
Click to expand...

Nice to see you're just scoring a cheap point like your pal, JC2. :p
 
So Leslie Manginat or Charles Henri Baker: who is Canada's choice?

That reminds me, Canada's record in Haiti hasn't exactly been blemish-free over the decades - has it?
 
spring-peeper said:
I think that the Canadian media will be covering this one a bit closer than the BBC is. Our Governor General is from there and our peacekeepers are all over the place.
Click to expand...

As I mentioned above, Canada seems to have its own agenda in Haiti. Its not just peacekeepers, there are all sorts of dodgy Canadian "security contractors" up to God knows what down there...
 
spring-peeper said:
It wasn't a cheap shot at the BBC. :rolleyes:

Jeez - paranoid aren't you?
Click to expand...


Nice try, peeper. But I read your post correctly. Now would you care to comment on Canada's record on Haiti or shall I do it?
 
electronic voting in haiti

so how did e-voting it go in haiti, read a few doom laden reports about obviously and disinfrancshisement with e-voting but the headlines say"man popular with poor" won so....eh
 
I wonder what forces have been mustered to oppose Preval's election. Surely the US will have the final say in how the country ins run and the US will have the help of its northern neighbour in this.
 
This is interesting...

Baker said Friday that declaring Preval the winner without a runoff "presages a somber future for democracy in Haiti."

http://www.heraldnewsdaily.com/stories/news-00145410.html
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That will be Charles Henri Baker, who's already muttering darkly.

Thabo Mbeki hails the election but keeps schtum about Aristide.

South Africa's warm reception of Aristide -- housing him and his family in a luxury guesthouse and flying them here in Mbeki's private jet -- goes against the United States and France, which openly backed the rebellion against him.

Aristide, who remains popular in Haiti's poor slums, has kept a low profile for most of his stay in South Africa and not commented on his possible return after the elections.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new...UK-SAFRICA-HAITI-ELECTIONS.xml&archived=False
Click to expand...

Interesting how many Americans have attacked France for its refusal to go along with US invasion plans for Iraq but were quite happy to accept their help in Haiti.
 
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