Legislative

Haiti: Senator Desras Meets with Cheryl Mills on Electoral Council

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - The President of the Senate, Simon Dieuseul Desras, held a meeting with Cheryl Mills, the Chief of Staff of the patron saint of the Department of State, Hillary Clinton, particularly devoted to the establishment of the Permanent Electoral Council and the organization of elections.

Mr. Desras admitted he was embarrassed when the representative of the Obama administration had asked the Senators present if they felt ready to take responsibility for blocking the formation of the process of the electoral body should the executive and the judiciary have identified six of nine councilors.

The eight days that President Michel Martelly had given to Parliament to appoint its three representatives to the Permanent Electoral Council expired Tuesday with no response from the legislature.

Deeply divided, the Senate, reduced to 20 since the departure in May of a third of its members, is unable to hold meetings and consider meeting with the National Assembly in the Lower House to form the CEP.

To the Senator from the North, Jean-Charles Moise (Nord/Inite), there is absolutely no way to take this step under current conditions because the electoral institution is an instrument that would allow the Head of State to get his hands on the next partial legislative, municipal and local elections.

The Parliamentarian of the Inite Party, which is firmly in opposition, is in favor of the establishment of a provisional electoral council of consensus in which different sectors of national life are represented.

However, the President of Grand Body, Simon Dieuseul Desras (Centre/Lavni), is far from sharing this view and even Tuesday brandished the threat of a reduction in the quorum in order to overcome the political deadlock seen since the ratification of the policy statement of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe followed by the promulgation of the amended constitution.

"There are legal provisions and case law to lower the quorum," argued Sen. Desras which, in a thinly veiled threat to the place of elected officials determined to boycott the plenary meetings, says that no legislation does not set 20 to the two-thirds majority in the Senate.

Yet it is precisely the inability of the Grand Body to reach that number which is presumed to remove the prospect of holding a National Assembly session devoted to the choice of three future electoral advisers.