Haiti regime postpones vote again

Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Commission has put off the country’s illegal presidential election once again. It announced on Nov. 25 that Jan. 8, 2006 will be the new date of presidential and legislative voting, followed by a Feb. 15 runoff.

Many Haitians say the delay is due to the general incompetence of the de facto government that came to power after U.S. Marines on Feb. 29, 2004 forced Presi dent Jean-Bertrand Aristide onto a U.S. plane that took him to the Central African Republic. This incompetence is intensified by the political maneuvering in the government and the PEC and by the bloody repression the government and the occupying troops under UN command mete out to protesters demanding the return of Aristide.

The PEC cites “technical reasons” for the delay: the need to distribute identification cards, print ballots, train election workers, set up polling offices and spend the $100 million that this election is going to cost the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

But some political maneuvers by the United States, France and Canada before the PEC announcement suggests that these technical reasons are a smokescreen.

The week before the PEC announced the postponement, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution authorizing MINUSTAH, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, to increase its troop strength in Haiti so it would have enough forces on the ground to protect all the polling places. Earlier in November, Abou Diouf, the secretary general of Inter national Franco phonie — an association of all countries which have French as a first or second language — had promised that troops from six French-speaking African countries—Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius and Senegal—would provide troops for MINUSTAH.

Nothing gets done on this level by Francophonie without the assent of the French government, which can then hide behind the actions of its neocolonies in Africa.

The same day that the PEC made its announcement, the Canadian government, which is a member of Franco phonie along with its province of Quebec, made an announcement that it was going to give an additional $33 million in aid to Haiti. While the announcement mentioned social services, the recent book, “Canada in Haiti,” exposes the fact that almost all the aid that Canada supplies to Haiti goes to reinforcing the police and courts.

After President George W. Bush suffered through a chilly, humiliating reception at Playa del Mar, Argentina, Nov. 3-4, he visited Brazil and met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Since a Brazilian general is in charge of MINUSTAH, one of the topics raised was Haiti and its elections.

According to the communiqué they issued, “both presidents affirm their engage ment to see political stability, demo cracy and economic development established in a permanent fashion in Haiti.” They expressed their “confidence that a new president, democratically elected, will assume his duties Feb. 7, 2006.”

Lula and Bush were perhaps a bit too optimistic, but their communiqué did signal to other countries that among their major concerns were Haiti’s future and legitimizing the de facto government the U.S. has imposed there.

What really publicly raised the hackles of the Haitian bourgeoisie and caused a big commotion was a demonstration in favor of René Préval, one of the 30 or so presidential candidates, who was a prime minister under Aristide and president between Aristide’s first and second terms. Some 10,000 people marched from Cité Soleil through the streets of Port-au-Prince to wind up at PEC headquarters.

MINUSTAH and the Haitian National Police provided security for the demonstration, which is surprising since similar demonstrations have been forbidden. What Préval hopes to achieve if he wins is not clear — he would face a parliament of opponents.

But the turnout and the enthusiasm that greeted this demonstration show how a very conscious, militant and struggle-oriented section of the Haitian people is intervening in the elections/selections that the de facto government is trying to hold. These Haitians might vote for Préval or might boycott the vote entirely.

The 1990 election surprised Wash ington when it put Aristide into office by a landslide, giving him 70 percent of the vote and crushing the U.S.-approved candidate, Marc Bazin. The election could again be much more a mass movement to resist imperialism and its Haitian allies. During other elections in the recent past, the population has held effective boycotts.

The U.S. government could still get its Haitian clients to cancel the elections altogether and remove the opportunity for the masses to intervene. That course, however, would expose U.S. pretensions to democracy.