[From article]
Amid escalating violent protests and attacks on electoral offices around the country, Haitian elections officials Friday afternoon abruptly canceled Sunday’s planned presidential and partial legislative runoffs.
[. . .]
Minutes earlier, officials had halted the distribution of ballots and other voting materials and began recovery of those that had already gone in day rapidly spiraling out of control as two more elections council member confirmed their pending resignation, and elections offices around the country came under violent attack.
The “violent acts” and the verbal threats against elections officials, left the council known as the CEP, with no choice, Opont said as he listed more than a dozen infrastructure that had either been set on fire, or where attempts were made. Among them, he said, was the communal electoral bureau in the northern city of Limbe. It was torched Friday morning. So was the private residence of the top elections official in the nearby city of Pignon.
“Masked individuals fired upon the voting center in Savanette this morning,” he said. “In Fond Parisien, there was a group of masked, armed individuals who seized all of the sensitive materials that they had started to deliver for Sunday’s vote.”
The CEP, said Opont, could not guarantee neither the security of poll workers or the country’s 5.8 million registered voters in runoffs for six senators, 27 deputies and a president in the disputed elections.
The announcement took many by surprise. Less than 30 minutes earlier, government-backed candidate Jovenel Moïse was sitting in the restaurant of a nearby hotel giving one of many interviews scheduled for the day, a final move to win over voters following a campaign rally in the city of Ouanaminthe.
[. . .]
The target of fraud allegations, the disputed elections have triggered a months long crisis with the top Roman Catholic and business leaders saying the conditions did not exist for a vote.
[. . .]
After word spread, they cheered, and passing motorists honked their horns. Soon pandemonium broke out as police fired tear gas to disperse crowds approaching the CEP’s headquarters. Angry demonstrators threw rocks. Gunshots were fired. Cars were burned.
Denouncing the violence, Célestin, the main opposition candidate in Sunday’s election, called the cancellation “a victory for all of the democratic sector.”
“This isn’t just about me. It’s also about all the people who supported me and who fought for us to arrive here,” he told the Miami Herald.
[. . .]
Instead, the council announced other measures. Recognizing those “concessions,” the U.S. government earlier in the week voiced its support for the runoff. Washington, which had sent two top diplomats to try and secure Célestin’s participation, had been insistent that Sunday’s vote had to happen.
[. . .]
They made no mention of either Jan. 24 or Feb. 7, been insistent that Haiti maintain to avoid a transition and possible chaos. Their failure to mention the date illustrated that Martelly’s position had now become shaky and it was increasingly becoming difficult for him to maintain order in a fragile Haiti.
At the beginning of the week, protesters burned tires and cars in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. By Friday morning, reports trickled in that schools doubling as voting bureaus were being burned. A live news interview by the president on Thursday morning didn’t help. He attacked the opposition, accusing them of “a vast plot” to destabilize his government because they could not win elections.
[. . .]
Sources familiar with the talks, say the sticking point remains Feb. 7, and who would govern Haiti afterward. Martelly supporters say he should be allowed to remain in power until a new president is elected. The opposition, including a majority of senators, want him gone.
While Martelly has been insistent on his desire to leave at the end of his presidential term, he has said that he has an obligation to hand power to another elected president. This, however, has been a rare occurrence in Haiti’s turbulent history where former President René Préval became the first president in modern Haitian history to not face prison, death or exile after he transferred power to Martelly in 2011.
“It was a campaign promise. I always said even if I came into power on 14th of May, I would leave on the 7th of February,” he said. “My responsibility it to hand over the power to an elected president.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article56092280.html
jcharles (at) miamiherald.com
After word spread, they cheered, and passing motorists honked their horns. Soon pandemonium broke out as police fired tear gas to disperse crowds approaching the CEP’s headquarters. Angry demonstrators threw rocks. Gunshots were fired. Cars were burned.
Denouncing the violence, Célestin, the main opposition candidate in Sunday’s election, called the cancellation “a victory for all of the democratic sector.”
“This isn’t just about me. It’s also about all the people who supported me and who fought for us to arrive here,” he told the Miami Herald.
[. . .]
Instead, the council announced other measures. Recognizing those “concessions,” the U.S. government earlier in the week voiced its support for the runoff. Washington, which had sent two top diplomats to try and secure Célestin’s participation, had been insistent that Sunday’s vote had to happen.
[. . .]
They made no mention of either Jan. 24 or Feb. 7, been insistent that Haiti maintain to avoid a transition and possible chaos. Their failure to mention the date illustrated that Martelly’s position had now become shaky and it was increasingly becoming difficult for him to maintain order in a fragile Haiti.
At the beginning of the week, protesters burned tires and cars in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. By Friday morning, reports trickled in that schools doubling as voting bureaus were being burned. A live news interview by the president on Thursday morning didn’t help. He attacked the opposition, accusing them of “a vast plot” to destabilize his government because they could not win elections.
[. . .]
Sources familiar with the talks, say the sticking point remains Feb. 7, and who would govern Haiti afterward. Martelly supporters say he should be allowed to remain in power until a new president is elected. The opposition, including a majority of senators, want him gone.
While Martelly has been insistent on his desire to leave at the end of his presidential term, he has said that he has an obligation to hand power to another elected president. This, however, has been a rare occurrence in Haiti’s turbulent history where former President René Préval became the first president in modern Haitian history to not face prison, death or exile after he transferred power to Martelly in 2011.
“It was a campaign promise. I always said even if I came into power on 14th of May, I would leave on the 7th of February,” he said. “My responsibility it to hand over the power to an elected president.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article56092280.html
JANUARY 22, 2016 2:49 PM
Haiti cancels Sunday presidential runoff elections
BY JACQUELINE CHARLESHaiti cancels Sunday presidential runoff elections
jcharles (at) miamiherald.com
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