[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 112 (Friday, August 1, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1624-E1625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HAITI'S ELECTIONS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 1, 1997

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, just three days before the scheduled 
Sunday, June 15, Haitian run-off election, officials announced that the 
second round vote would be called off once again. Haiti's electorate 
was prepared to vote for seven of the twenty-seven Senate seats and one 
Deputy seat. The outcome of these elections would play an important 
role in determining the country's future political and economic 
direction and could have been detrimental to the U.S.-backed austerity 
program on which President Rene Preval and former Prime Minister Rosny 
Smarth have staked their reputations. The following research 
memorandum, authored by Karen L. Bucknell, Research Associate for the 
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, addresses the economic and political 
problems that persist in Haiti and demonstrates the need for leaders to 
take the country off the proverbial Capital Hill back burner and place 
it on the forefront of foreign policy makers' agendas:

                     Persisting Political Problems

       Aristide's incredible popularity among his countrymen makes 
     any election inevitably one-sided in favor of his new 
     political vehicle, the Famni Lavalas movement. There were 
     accusations by the opposition that the results of the April 6 
     elections had been manipulated by the alleged pro-Aristide 
     Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). The elections were 
     further tarnished by a turnout of only 5% of the eligible 
     voters, a huge defeat for the island's democratization 
     prospects.
       The tension created by such insinuations of tampering 
     delegitimized the approaching vote to the point that its 
     cancellation was imminent. The White House and the 
     international community have since warned that they would 
     have difficulty acknowledging the results of any Haitian 
     elections until Aristide's old mass base, the Lavalas 
     Political Organization (OPL) which now backs President 
     Preval, agrees not to boycott the election. Compounding 
     political problems, on June 9 Rosny Smarth resigned from his 
     post as prime minister. Now the president and parliamentary 
     leaders in the upper and lower houses must agree on a 
     candidate who can fill the vacant office. A new election date 
     will not be set until the OPL agrees to enter the race and 
     the government chooses its nominee.
       Although Smarth abdicated all authority upon his 
     resignation, he has agreed to remain at his post until a new 
     prime minister is appointed. His presence at the June 18 
     meeting on social and economic issues, including Preval, 
     departmental delegates and mayors of towns, was a positive 
     sign of his commitment to play a constructive role. Some 
     observers fell that by merely remaining as a holdover in his 
     position, he is reducing the built-in tension created by the 
     canceled vote.


              Preval, Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Spot

       Postponing the run-off was also a blow to Preval, who had 
     little to gain and much to lose from this development, as 
     well as from the resignation of Smarth. Preval's increasingly 
     deep rivalry with his old mentor Aristide (concerning the 
     modernization plans) was inevitable, given the latter's 
     direct hold on the population. Preval lacks a personal 
     following and, together with his willingness to adopt hugely 
     unpopular neo-liberal reforms at the behest of Washington and 
     the lending agencies, could fatally jeopardize his ability to 
     lead the country through the difficulties of modernization. 
     By giving in to international business interests, Preval 
     risks giving the appearance that things are beyond his 
     control. The State Department issued a statement shortly 
     after Smarth resigned which was meant to absolve Preval of 
     some of the blame for the problems he has encountered while 
     governing. It said, ``We think President Preval ought to be 
     given the opportunity and the political space to govern. It 
     is very difficult to succeed someone as popular as 
     Aristide.''
       There are groups in Haiti that have accused UN and U.S. 
     personnel and organizations still in the country of fomenting 
     the political rifts that have arisen. Jodel Chablain, a top 
     leader for the Front for the Advancement and Progress for 
     Haiti (FRAPH), a notorious organization once led by the ill-
     reputed Emmanuel Constant, explained to Radio Metropole, 
     ``Foreign management . . . is what is causing division in the 
     country.''


       Questionable Practices in Controversial April 6 Elections

       Haiti is experiencing a dramatic reversal of citizen 
     involvement in its public life, in contrast to the 
     overwhelming 1990 turnout at the polls when Aristide won two-
     thirds of the vote. A disenchanted electorate no longer 
     believes that elections or candidates can meaningfully 
     improve their lives. As has been noted, only 5 percent of 
     eligible citizens cast their ballots on April 6. Former 
     Senator Jean-Robert Martinez claimed that this low showing 
     indicated that the people ``blame their misery on the vote . 
     . . and that's extremely dangerous for democracy.''
       With 70% unemployment, Haiti is the poorest country in the 
     Western hemisphere, with upwards of 65% of its urban 
     population and 80% of its rural population living in absolute 
     poverty. If only for symbolic reasons, the vast majority of 
     the country's population strongly opposes the Preval 
     government's privatization plan, which is aggressively being 
     pushed by Washington as a precondition for economic 
     assistance. This has become the dividing issue between the 
     president and Aristide which led the latter to launch his new 
     anti-government faction, the Famni Lavalas Party. ``It is 
     impossible to support a program that does not correspond with 
     the people's needs,'' said Deputy Joseph Jasmine, alluding to 
     the widely held belief that the industries scheduled to be 
     privatized are part of the nation's patrimony. If put on the 
     block, it is feared that these properties--looted over the 
     years by a string of dictators ending with military junta 
     leader General Raul Cedras--will be pounced upon by the 
     nation's tiny and self-absorbed economic elite which already 
     dominate the country's finances and commerce.
       Preval's austerity program involves the partial 
     privatization of nine major state sectors, the lowering of 
     import tariffs and the shrinking of the public sector work 
     force. It was implemented on the condition that the major 
     multilateral agencies and foreign donors would continue to 
     provide international development funds for Haiti. 
     According to the World Bank, since the U.S. ouster of the 
     military junta in 1994, the island state has been 
     allocated more than $2 billion in loans from such sources 
     as the IDB, USAID and the EU. An update issued by the 
     Washington Office on Haiti explained that Smarth recently 
     indicated that the international community finances nearly 
     100 percent of Haiti's development budget.


                 The Aborted June 15 Run-off Elections

       The cancellation of the June 15 run-offs came as a complete 
     surprise to most international monitoring groups. The general 
     integrity of the April balloting was upheld even though there 
     were some infractions; however, these were neither systemic 
     nor sufficient to invalidate the vote. There were even some 
     guardedly optimistic predictions that the voter turnout on 
     June 15 would increase significantly from the earlier 
     shockingly low showing, if due to nothing else than Smarth's 
     resignation and the belief that the government would now be 
     more responsive to the people's sentiments. Given Aristide's 
     overwhelming backing by the populace, the opposition has been 
     using the threat of a boycott since 1995 as one of the few 
     arrows in its quiver for extracting political concessions 
     from the governing process. Yet all the political players are 
     well aware that a boycott could do great damage to Haiti's 
     image abroad, particularly among international donors who 
     fund the island's recovery.
       Given his grip over the masses, if Aristide's Famni Lavalas 
     Party gains control of the Senate, his prospects of winning 
     the presidential election in 2000 are all but

[[Page E1625]]

     certain. Hope continues to stir among impoverished Haitians 
     for Aristide's return to office, despite the economic 
     stagnation which characterized his previous term. Hesitant 
     that Aristide's 1990 platform was too radical and unstable, 
     the Clinton Administration insisted that he be little more 
     than a figurehead president. His opposition to the Preval/
     Smarth-supported austerity programs gives the public optimism 
     for the future. But a legislature controlled by Aristide's 
     party will likely have a negative impact on foreign 
     investment and donations. In a country like Haiti, which 
     lacks the basic infrastructure and natural resources needed 
     to build upon, a drop in investment could have a devastating 
     effect on the future of its economy.


                 Self-Determination Over Modernization?

       The postponed legislative elections are a crucial element 
     in helping to determine the country's future. Right now 
     Congress is split between supporters of Preval's 
     modernization plan and those who rally behind Aristide and 
     his anti-austerity campaign. The pro-Preval OPL currently 
     controls the Senate. By a narrow vote it succeeded in 
     obtaining that body's approval to begin privatizing many of 
     the state-run industries. There are nine of these 
     privatization programs underway, including the electric and 
     telephone companies.
       In the first round of elections, voters demonstrated their 
     abiding trust in former President Aristide. Aside from being 
     huge, it is impossible to know exactly what percentage of the 
     population rallies behind him today, due to the minute voter 
     showing at the polls and the accusations of fraud. With the 
     seven seats in the Senate, Aristide's Famni Lavalas, party 
     almost certainly would have won most of the positions being 
     contested, drowning the OPL. This scenario does not seem 
     all that unlikely given the fact that Preval and other OPL 
     leaders have had enormous difficulties gathering 
     significant domestic support for their internationally-
     backed austerity plans. According to a speech Aristide 
     gave shortly after Smarth's resignation, ``It is a game of 
     organizing their own business rules which are good for 
     those that have more and bad for those who have less.'' 
     Such sentiments are widely held by the Haitian population.
       What makes for this extreme variation of opinion on the 
     island? Once again it goes back to the haves and have-nots. 
     The initial stages of the reforms inevitably will bring job 
     cuts as private management seeks to achieve efficiency 
     through heightened productivity. Most of these state-run 
     industries are notorious for their inefficiency. But in a 
     country experiencing astronomically high unemployment, such 
     job cuts will eliminate the sole source of income for many 
     families. It affords scarce solace to individuals who must 
     live their lives worrying about their short-run needs (such 
     as how they are going to get their next meal) to endure 
     crushing hardships for the distant possibility of long-run 
     benefits. They ask, what good are such prospects if people 
     cannot survive the suffering that they are forced to 
     presently endure?
       If indeed Aristide does gain a majority in any future 
     election he may contest--namely the presidential race of 
     2000--it is assumed that he will respond to mass public 
     opinion by putting an end to or reform at least some of the 
     privatization programs. However, the United States and other 
     international donors have threatened to pull the plug on 
     development funding if the austerity plan is abandoned, and 
     without such funds Haiti is doomed to sink down to an even 
     starker level of poverty.


                           U.S. Role in Haiti

       The majority of development funds received by Haiti come 
     from the U.S. In practice, this should endow the U.S. 
     government with a significant influence over Haitian economic 
     and political developments. The basic inconsistency of the 
     Clinton Administration's policy towards Haiti lies in the 
     fact that global democratization is a putative priority for 
     the United States, yet leaders continue to press the island 
     to structure its economy in accordance with Washington's neo-
     liberal prescriptions, thereby denying the Haitian public 
     (when it comes to privatization) the right to self-
     determination, the most fundamental component of a fully 
     functioning democracy.
       Although Washington was the driving force behind Aristide's 
     brief return to the presidency in 1994, his empowerment was 
     not permitted. Due to U.S. involvement, what was happening in 
     Port-au-Prince did little more then legitimize a process that 
     would depoliticize the island, transforming it into a paragon 
     of the market reforms Washington insists should guild that 
     nation's economic development.

     

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