Introduction

Present in Haiti since August 2010, the OAS-CARICOM Joint Election Observation Mission was able to monitor the administrative, technical and logistical preparations for both the postponed legislative elections and the presidential elections. In view of the fact that the legislative elections should have been held on 28 February 2010, but were postponed following the devastating earthquake of 12 January, the JEOM was not present for the political dimension of the legislative elections, the registration of political parties and the submission and validation of candidates. The Mission however notes that an important facet of this phase which would have an impact on the political dimension of the remainder of the electoral process was the non-validation of a number of political parties.

In the course of its monitoring activities, the JEOM made a number of observations, comments and recommendations to the Provisional Electoral Council as well as the political parties, which it believed could have been of assistance in bringing about free and fair elections.

The Last Preparatory and Election Campaign Phases

Despite the doubts cast by some commentators on the electoral register and the manner on which it was prepared, the JEOM is of the view that its preparation was in keeping with the respective legal responsibilities of the ONI and CEP. The late submission of the last batch of names by the ONI was unhelpful, but was no doubt due to the late surge of persons wishing to register in September, a mere two weeks before the transmission of the ONI data base to the CEP.

The very late launching of the “Where to Vote” campaign and the saturation of the call centres put in place by the CEP and, later, the Private Sector Forum, did not fully offset the negative repercussions of the delayed campaign. This would have a grave effect on the ability of voters to find their polling stations on Election Day and create an atmosphere of intense frustration and tension. The Mission believes that at the same time citizens have the responsibility to make an effort in advance of Election Day to identify their Polling Stations.

Despite the swift rise in election-related acts of violence and civil unrest in the last days of the campaign as pre-Election Day tensions rose and several earlier scuffles and grave incidents, the election campaign was to quite an extent well conducted and to the credit of the political parties and the citizenry. The public rallies, candidate posters, radio and television debates, the efforts of the media to inform the public on the candidates and their programmes, as well as the polling, helped to instill some excitement in the campaign despite the dampening impact of the ravages of the cholera epidemic.

The JEOM noted and commented publicly on the enormous disparity in resources enjoyed by the ruling party and its competitors. It also noted that a number of presidential candidates appeared to have stopped campaigning with one conceding publicly that he had withdrawn.

The last days of the election campaign were accompanied by rumours as well as allegations by leading presidential candidates of preparations for massive fraud. Senior officials of the CEP appeared to be swept up in this toxic atmosphere and unhelpfully added their voices to these unsubstantiated claims.

Election
Day Safeguards

Drawing the lessons from previous election experiences, including the partial legislative elections of 2009, a number of safeguards were built into the voting and vote count procedures:

- photographs accompanied the names of the voters on the polling station registers. However, the identity card numbers were left off in order to prevent the known practice of poll workers signing for absent voters and stuffing ballots;

- the ballots and proces-verbaux contained security features to deter counterfeiting;

- the tally sheet procedures also included deterrent elements to prevent the changing of the results;

- the provision of tamper-proof transparent envelopes for the tally sheets and other sensitive voting material.

Election Day

Election Day was marred by a number of irregularities:

- late opening of Polling Stations

- inability of many voters to find the correct Voting Centre and/or Polling Station;

- inability of voters to find their names on the electoral registers posted up outside the Polling Stations;

- saturation of the call centres overwhelmed by callers seeking where to vote;

- instances of incorrect application of voting procedures ( the signing of the ballots by BV Presidents before the arrival of the voter);

- instances of voter manipulation – repeat voting of some voters facilitated by complicit poll workers and unidentified party agents;

- the lack of control of already limited voting space by the poll workers , as well as the indiscipline of many mandataires, led to clogged polling stations where control of the process became tenuous and facilitated misconduct.

The observation reports transmitted by the JEOM observer teams indicate that the voting process unfolded far more smoothly in most of the provinces than in Port-of-Prince, though the above irregularities were also observed.

There were also deliberate acts of violence and intimidation to derail the electoral process both in Port-au-Prince and the provinces.

More subversive of the process was the toxic atmosphere created by the allegations of “massive fraud”. The JEOM observed instances where even before the voting started, any inconvenience or small problem led to the immediate cry of fraud. Such conduct continued during the day.

The presence of 66 parties meant that there would be a large number of party agents (“mandataires”) deployed. Foreseeing the problems that this would cause, the CEP had indicated that no more than five party agents would be allowed into the Polling Station at any one time. Rotation of party agents would therefore be necessary. However, all would be permitted to monitor the vote count. The JEOM observed the problems that this arrangement caused with many party agents claiming that their party agents were being denied entry. The JEOM teams followed up in several parts of the country the complaints made to it by party representatives on this problem and found that in general the complaints were not founded. This became another reason to cry fraud.

The electoral process continued until the very end in all the Departments despite the destruction of Polling Stations in a number of locations, discontinued polling in some polling stations because of rising but localized insecurity, and limited incidents of serious violence. According to information provided by MINUSTAH, the total number of Polling Stations destroyed did not exceed 4% in the entire country.