November 23, 2010
HRRW’s own Dan Beeton writes in today’s Los Angeles Times:
Haiti is scheduled to hold elections on Nov. 28, and nothing — neither the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people nor the fact that more than 1 million earthquake survivors remain homeless — seems likely to convince the Haitian government or its international backers that the vote should be postponed. It should be. Why? The electoral process is rigged. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems happy to go along with the charade.
Earlier this month President Obama rightly condemned the bogus elections in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military regime). He said: “The unfair electoral laws and overtly partisan Election Commission [controlled by the military regime] ensured that Burma’s leading pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy, was silenced and sidelined.” And NLD party leader Aung San Suu Kyi
Now that a similarly flawed process is about to be repeated much closer to home, the Obama administration should be equally adamant in condemning it.
In Haiti, as in Burma, several parties, including the most popular, Fanmi Lavalas, are being kept off the ballot in an overtly anti-democratic move. Fanmi Lavalas has won every election it has participated in, and authorities seem determined to prevent that from happening again. In Haiti, as in Burma, a council handpicked and controlled by the government is overseeing the electoral process. And in Haiti, as in Burma, the popular party’s leader is kept from rallying supporters.
Read the rest here…
