Post Election Post

Well, November 28th has come and gone, and that means the Haitian presidential election has taken place. Democracy in action! Or so you'd think. There were 19 candidates for president, including Jude Celestin, the handpicked successor by the current (and disliked) President Rene Preval. There's Mirlande Manigat, the main opposition leader. She's 70 years old, they call her "the Grandma", is a teacher, and the wife of the former president of Haiti, Leslie Manigat. Then there's Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, a popular Haitian singer, and a bunch of other guys.

Since living here, there are 3 Haitians we come into regular contact with (who work for the orphanage). Fernand, is 22, and worked at a voting station for the election. The day after the election he came knocking on our door at 9pm because he said the Haitian people are going crazy, and he wanted a safer place to sleep for the night. His job was to check would-be-voters names off the list of voters registered to that polling station. He said at least half of the people who showed up weren't on his list, and therefore couldn't vote. Needless to say, they were not happy with him. This was one of the main problems of the election. People who died in the earthquake earlier this year were still on the list, while others either didn't know which polling station to go to, or didn't have their voting card in order. Lots of confusion. Fernand told me today he wishes a non-Haitian would be president of the country, because he doesn't think the country is ready to vote for another "50 years" (he said).

Vladimyr also works for the family, and refused to vote in the election because he was assigned to a voting station that was 20 minutes (by car) down the road, and he didn't want to take the time/money to get there. It seemed fairly apathetic, saying none of the candidates are great, and Haiti is basically screwed either way.

The last person I talked to about this is John, my French teacher. He went to vote, and when he got there they gave him 3 ballots! Turns out, a lot of the voting stations were staffed by Inite supporters (the political party currently in power), and they wanted extra votes for Celestin. So, according to John, if you voted for Celestin they'd have 3 votes, and if you didn't, they'd simply take your ballot, add a second "X" (for a different candidate), and the double-vote would invalidate your ballot. John didn't want to take part in a fraud ridden system, so he decided not to vote. He also claimed to see hundreds of ballots just "lying about the place." He also couldn't understand why voting stations weren't held to the number of voters as that station was assigned. I asked him why they didn't use voters names or finger prints on the ballots to make sure there was only 1 vote per person, but he said this was impossible because of illiteracy and a lack of technology.

Well, Haitians weren't too happy with this, as it seemed Celestin was sure to win, and so they began protesting. Rioting began in Port, and road blocks were set up throughout the country... not really sure why... There were reports of gun-fire and people being shot/killed. Abra and Trisha tried to get to Port for some errands, but were stopped by protesting Haitians who had thrown rocks onto the road to create a make-shift road block. They weren't threatening, but they warned of more dangers, and killings ahead. So Abra and Trisha turned around. They came back to Verrettes, and tried to use the other road to get out of town. Different direction, same results. Road blocks, and warnings of riots and crazy Haitians ahead. So they returned to Verrettes, with no way out of town. Air lift please!! No, it's not that bad, but we are somewhat locked in here, at least for now.

The tension is very real. John got caught in a riot-turned-street-fight in the next town over (Desarmes). We're not sure how it got started (lost in translation), but it had something to do with politics. John ended up hiding out at friends house until 10pm that night. And, in the whole process, lost his phone in the chaos.

After the election 12 of the 19 candidates denounced the election, saying it was wrought with fraud and the results should be dismissed. But then the results started to come in. With about 50% of the vote counted, Martelly was leading with 39%, Manigat had 31%, and Celestin 12%. Suddenly Martelly and Manigat started saying we should respect the say of the people. If the results hold, they'd be headed to a runoff January 7th. Apparently Celestin did a very poor job of cheating.

Despite the 3 accounts from the election, the international observers claimed that despite 'irregularities', including bullying, lack of knowledge about which voting station to go to, and stuffed ballot boxes, there wasn't enough fraud to invalidate the election. However, they only had observers at 59 of the 1500 voting stations. They claimed that about 4% of the voting stations experienced discontinuous service (ie they shut down). Most, if not all, of the stations were patrolled by UN soldiers.

Because of the surprising result of the election (Celestine not winning, at least so far), we're hoping the tension will cool off. I thought Manigat had a shot, since most of the Haitians we talk to seem to like her. They're not as excited about Martelly, who they accuse of not being a politician, and being incompetent for the job. From the little I've seen of him, he seems charismatic, and he said he was fighting for Haiti's poor, but when 99% of your constituents are poor, apparently every candidate says that.

So we're hoping everything will work itself out soon. The official results will be announced December 7th. Most likely there will be a runoff, so we'll have another month before the country potentially self-destructs.

Other than that, Ray had his 60th birthday on Saturday. For the occasion, Abra and I offered babysitting duties, if he and Trisha wanted to "get away" for a couple days (we were thinking overnight in some nice beach town in Haiti). We weren't even sure if they'd take us up on the offer (having only known us for 6 weeks). But upon reading our card, Ray grew a big smile and said "you're on!" He and Trisha were very excited, and spent the rest of the day researching where to go, one person looking up hotels, and the other on Google Earth. A short while later, and they were in the kitchen asking if they could extend the trip to 3 days, then 4 or 5. They ended up finding a bungalow in the Dominican Republic and booked their stay Tuesday through Saturday.

So Tuesday morning, they woke up at 3am and left (so as to avoid the protesters and roadblocks), and left Abra and I with 13, unruly kids, all 8 years old or younger (except the 16 year old, who has the mental capacity/character of a toddler). It's been 2 days, and so far the house hasn't burnt down. It has been exhausting, and I'm starting to understand why Dado and Momma just need to "get away" to the depot all the time.

There really needs to be someone here to help with the kids, especially someone who can also continue school after Abra and I leave. It's been a lot of work, and a little frustrating, but that has more to do with my impatience with their slow learning, than trying to keep them all under control. For the most part, they really are good kids. But, they are in desperate need of school. Some of them are 8 years old, and the extent of their education is whenever Ray and Trisha have a volunteer guest staying with them for 7-10 days who has an interest in teaching the kids anything.

So I'm forging ahead with giving them basic math, reading and writing skills, and trying to set up something for when we leave.

All else is going well! Vladimyr and Fernand are here to help us, but seem more interested in the internet than supervising. Life is good! But I need a vacation from this. We set December 14th as our end date (total of 2 months). Lets see if we make it.

Posted by Hans


p.s.  New post coming soon! Stay tuned!