Political
Haiti: Fmr Port-au-Prince Mayor Warns of Encroaching Political Crisis
- Friday, December 16, 2011 12:52 PM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - The latest public figure to caution the public of an encroaching political crisis was the former Mayor of Port-au-Prince, Evans Paul, who recalled that elections should have been held in November for dozens of seats to be replaced in 2012.
With a third of the senate having terms ending in May and local authorities, mayors, commissioners, have terms ending in January, Evans Paul, who is also the spokesman for the political platform, Alternative, eluded to the fact that the members of the executive have not made any provisions to even set a date for holding elections, a negligence that would lead to a "crisis" he lamented.
"...there is a great big delay the way things are going about organizing the next elections and there are people who see it as the way [the executive] they are meddling with the dynamics of democracy in the country. And I understand that there are colleagues that would attribute it to the general negligence of the president."
Paul spoke of the Constitution which requires that a "Permanent" Electoral Council, with nine (9) members chosen by the three branches of government, the judicial, executive and legislative, each choosing three (3). The alternative to that is what Haiti had last year, the the "Provisional" Electoral Council which had its members chosen by the president. The last elections in Haiti were so wrought with fraud and inconsistencies even to the point of having an order of arrest issued against the president of the council.
The former mayor of Port-au-Prince also recalled 4 members of parliament who should have been installed since the second month of the Martelly administration, June. The 99 member lower house is now operating with 94 deputies; Deputy Dionald Polyte (Pestel & Beaumont/Inite) deceased since July.
"...one of the big problems in the democratic system of Haiti are bad elections. Elections are always contested, elections always have problems and here, in this case, the time has passed that an election was due to be held this is going to create another crisis. A crisis caused by the end of mandates."
Paul concluded.
Related 07.25.2011: Parliamentarian Dionald Polyte (Inite, Grand'Anse) Shot Dead
