Haiti’s post-election crisis deepened on Saturday as monitor groups joined the main opposition candidates in dismissing a planned recount intended to stave off more deadly unrest.
The unrest prompted the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to announce plans to add up all the tally sheets in the presence of the three main candidates in a bid to counter the widespread allegations of fraud.
But those plans are now in disarray as the losing opposition candidate Michel Martelly is refusing to participate in a process he is convinced will be engineered by the ruling party, just like, he alleges, the November 28 polls.
“The solution of this public farce which has already caused some regrettable losses in human lives is certainly not a simple recount of the tally sheets in the possession of the CEP,” Martelly, 49, wrote in a letter to the commission.
The singer-turned-politician called for “the cancellation of tally sheets from polling stations that were sacked, vandalised, the object of massive and scandalous fraud in favor of the ruling party candidate Jude Celestin.”
In an interview with AFP on Friday, Martelly called the recount a “trap” and accused Preval of conspiring with the election commission, Unity, and Celestin to rig the polls in secret back-room meetings.
According to official results, Mirlande Manigat, a 70-year-old academic and former first lady, clearly led the poll, while Celestin, 48, pipped Martelly by less than 7,000 votes to gain the second place in a January 16 run-off.
Manigat has also refused to support the vote review until the electoral commission announces clear procedures about how the process will be authenticated.
Haiti monitors, including the European Union-funded National Observation Council, called instead for a proper dialogue, saying plans to recount the tally sheets “are not sufficient to lead to an eventual end to the crisis.”
By: (AFP)
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