The CEP has been politically discredited for previous participation in rigged and manipulated elections in April and June 2009 in favor of President Preval's party, Inite. As a result, civil society groups, political parties, churches, private sector representatives, and the Haitians Diaspora have called for the naming of nine new members in accordance with Article 289 of the Constitution.
Technically, the CEP lacks the infrastructure or expertise to organize elections. U.S. assistance to Haiti's elections started in 1989 at the request of Provisional President Pascale Trouillot. From 1989 to 2010 the United States spent US$400 million supporting Haiti's elections. After 21 years of technical and financial support to Haiti's electoral process, there is nothing to show for that investment: no credible or permanent electoral council, no official voter registry, no professional staff, no IT system, and no permanent infrastructure (such as ballot boxes or ballot formats). Every two years, the entire process needs to be recreated by a provisional electoral council, the CEP, with international assistance and maybe some leftover ballot boxes.
Haiti's electoral machine has not been institutionalized because no benchmarks were put in place to ensure the construction of an impartial and competent electoral council. The beneficiaries of U.S. funding, the United Nations, have a poor track record in institutionalizing electoral processes around the world. Instead of building sustainable indigenous capacity, they typically engage expensive consultants and foreign companies to organize and administer the elections. All the expertise leaves the country after the elections, and there is no effort to build capacity. This practice must change.
3. The Security of the Haitian People Cannot be Ensured
The Preval machine along with his allies in the corrupt business cartel, Groupe de Bourdon, want to preserve their power and privilege and will continue to employ violence and intimidation in that quest. There is no doubt that they are planning to intimidate voters and employ violence to influence the vote. This puts the entire electorate in danger, and there are no security forces to mitigate that risk.
The MINUSTAH (or UN headquarters) was completely demolished in the earthquake and has not been rebuilt. They do not currently have the capacity or credibility among the Haitian people to ensure safety during the elections.
The Haitian police are trying to be professional, but they lack capacity. MINUSTAH has been in country since 2004 and has received $732 million per year (or more than $4 billion) to train the Haitian police force and undertake peacekeeping operations. But the results are minimal compared to the money spent, and consequently the Haitian police, while eager and committed, are not fully trained. Same thing happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spending money but never built up capacity
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