Martelly’s Historically Weak Mandate (CEPR)

[EFerrari]

Martelly’s Historically Weak Mandate
Tuesday, 05 April 2011 13:13


Preliminary results announced by the CEP last night showed Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly with 67.6 percent of the vote, while Mirlande Manigat received 31.5 percent. While news headlines focus on the “landslide” victory for Martelly, he actually received the support of only 16.7 percent of registered voters -- far from a strong mandate -- as early reports show Martelly with just 716,986 votes to Manigat’s 336,747. Reports indicate that turnout was even lower than in the first round, when it was a historically low 22.8 percent, and Martelly’s percent of votes (as well as Manigat’s) would have been even smaller were it not for the use of new electoral lists which removed some 400,000 people from the rolls.

Nevertheless, media reports have largely ignored the issue of turnout. AOL’s Emily Troutman reported last night that, “Martelly's 67 percent of the vote is nearly unprecedented in Haiti and a clear mandate for his leadership”. Not only is the 67 percent number misleading in terms of his overall support, it is also far from unprecedented (as other reporters have also stated). In 1990 Aristide was elected with 67 percent of the vote, but with significantly higher turnout. Aristide received over one million votes in 1990 even though there were over one million fewer registered voters at the time. In 1995, Preval was elected with over 87 percent of the vote. In 2000, Aristide received over 3.5 times as many votes as Martelly did in the runoff elections last month. Even Preval’s most recent term began with a greater mandate than Martelly’s; in 2006 he received nearly one million votes with 700,000 fewer registered voters.

It is also worth noting that the electoral process has been deeply flawed from the beginning. Despite an aggressive and expensive get-out-the-vote campaign from the UN and U.S., the second round suffered from many of the same problems as the first: low turnout and a high number of irregularities. The legality of the second round remains in doubt given that a majority of the CEP’s members appear never to have verified the first round results.

There were also widespread irregularities in the March 20 elections. Although the US issued a statement last night saying that irregularities “were isolated and reduced”, some 15 percent of the tally sheets were quarantined from preliminary results due to fraud or other irregularities. This is a greater portion excluded than in the first round, and represents over 100,000 votes.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/martellys-historically-weak-mandate?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[EFerrari]

1. HaitiAidWatch says 13,000 fewer votes in second round.

http://twitter.com/#!/HaitiAidWatch/status/55376990324260864

[Judi Lynn]

2. How would he have done if Lavalas had been allowed to participate?

What a horrendous sham.

Invisible rec.

[EFerrari]

3. We're really mistaken if we think that our officials facilitate these thefts

in other countries without consequence to our own elections. :shrug:

[rabs]

4. Marines in Haiti

Did you see that mystifying post (in GD, I think) last night that said 300 U.S. Marines had arrived in Haiti "to help prepare for hurricane season." The Marines were said to have arrived on Sunday. The election results were announced yesterday (Monday).

Posted article quoted the U.S. ambassador in Port-au-Prince.

If it is true, that is strange because hurricane season does not begin until June 1.

I was suspicious that maybe Manigat had won but that Martelly was given the victory and the Marines were dispatched in case of violence. :shrug:

[EFerrari]

5. I saw a different article, maybe at yahoo!, about Marines deployed

to help with the next phase of a "humanitarian" mission, which I took to be about the earthquake relief. But yeah, the timing is suspicious.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Can I rage for a moment? CEPR is too polite. The U.S. and the corpo-fascist press are LYING

about this filthily corrupt, fraudulent election in Haiti.

Most times, I love CEPR for their objectivity, their sticking with the numbers, their "just the facts, M'am" attitude. And I would not have them otherwise.

But I am outraged by what "the numbers" show in this case, and about the U.S. bludgeoning of Haiti in general. U.S. interference in the first round, including its dictate that the majority party--Aristide's Lavalas party--be banned from the ballot, and its utterly fraudulent "re-count" (and creation of this phony "election monitoring group" comprised of the U.S., France and Canada) (Jeez!), and the Clinton/Bush blackmail of Haiti over the $9 billion in earthquake aid, are AWFUL. DISGUSTING. VILE! ANTI-DEMOCRATIC! FASCIST! And those horrible actions, combined with their letting "Baby Doc" back into the country, create conditions for the mayhem and bloodshed that the U.S. likes to foster in targeted societies (Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya), and prefers as a method of control. MURDER by proxy is the U.S. intent.

A 22.8% voter turnout advertised as an honest election is the COSMETICS smeared over this vicious U.S. policy of fostering murder and mayhem!

That's what we are looking at--viciousness.

Haiti's utterly desperate poor majority--with millions still living under tent canopies (not even in tents!), with inadequate water and food, with a grave cholera outbreak, with nothing to do--no way to make a living--and with almost no development having been accomplished--and now with a mafioso like Martelly in charge--won't take much more. And the explosion that is being fostered--planned, counted upon, drawn up in Langley--will bring forth the death squads (with which Martelly is associated), and full on Pentagon occupation of Haiti.

That is THE PLAN. Haiti is a strategic asset that the Pentagon intends to fully acquire, in its "circle the wagons" region--Central America/the Caribbean. The horrible earthquake and horrible misery in Haiti are being used toward that end.

The word "disgusting" doesn't cover how I feel about this. The only word that adequately describes U.S. policy in Haiti is "viciousness." And I am simply mind-boggled by it. It is undisguised. It is so obvious. It is so cruel.