News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: Aug 13, 2015
• Views : 662
• Category : Haiti News
• Description : AMG
  August 10, 2015
  
  Official complacency, seemingly illogical voter registrations, ballots imported from Dubai, a history of foreign intervention and voter apathy combined to taint Haiti's first elections in over four years
  
  Photo: A ransacked polling centre in Cité Soleil. Image Credit @jakobjohnston
• Location : Port-au-Prince, Ouest, Haiti
• Website : http://www.antillean.org/what-went-wrong-with-haitis-elections-267/

Overview

• PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, August 10, 2015 (AMG) — The official results from yesterday’s first round of legislative elections won’t be announced for 10 days, but as polls closed last night, the numbers were coming in nevertheless: 54 voting centres (5% of the total) forced to close because of violence and intimidation; at least 5 people killed, and 137 arrested for election-day violence or disruption.
  
  The long-awaited elections, the country’s first in over four years, had been greeted with enthusiasm and energy from the candidates and political parties: 128 different parties registered to participate in the election, and during the last two months, every available surface – from telephone poles to broken-down cars left on the roadside – was plastered with campaign posters.
  
  But the response from the general public was a shrug: even before reports of violence at voting centres discouraged would-be voters from turning up, most analysts were predicting very low turnout.
  
  The sheer scale of the election — all the positions that should have been contested during the last four years are now being contested in the same year — combined with the staggering number of political parties fielding candidates, meant that this election was always going to be a logistical challenge.
  
  Read more here >>