The End of the Elections and the Carnival President

Michel "Sweet Mickey" Martelly - (from: Reuters)

For those who have been reading this blog from the beginning, you may remember this post where I jokingly profiled the long-shot candidate Michel Martelly, the “other singer” (after Wyclef Jean) who was running for president. Well, on Wednesday he will be officially announced the winner of the elections and the next head of the Haitian state with over two-thirds of the popular vote (the preliminary results were reported on April 5).

Over seven long months the elections have faced many startling challenges. With cholera raging in the background, Haitians watched as the process was almost hijacked by fraud, delayed by international involvement and shocked by unexpected visitors. As Haitians celebrate the end of this grueling necessity of democracy, we thought the process was worth a little recap. Don’t be surprised if a movie script comes out on this one day.

The first round of elections was held on November 28th and was marred by irregularities and wrapped up in thick webs of domestic and international politics, causing the original vote count to limp along without denouncement or endorsement. However, when the preliminary results excluded Martelly from the run-off, street protests quickly erupted. The two days of rock throwing and tire burning (see pictures on our blog)

Baby Doc on his way back from the airport. -AFP
(from theage.com.au)

could only be ended by an international OAS investigation that recommended that Martelly be included in the final ballot after all. By this time, of course, it was impossible to keep the originally scheduled second round of voting in late January. As confusion over the postponement reigned, Haiti received the highly-unexpected return of its ex-dictotaor Jean-Claude Duvalier. For days, his spokesmen offered varying accounts of why he had returned, and the world held it’s breath that he would not endorse a candidate – or worse – proclaim his own candidacy. He eventually faded into his mountain chateau and has set his efforts to quietly defend against his health ailments and human rights charges, both of which seem to be gaining ground.

Meanwhile, outgoing President Rene Preval was taking advantage of a two month election postponement to extend his mandate to May, angering many. But by this point, election fatigue was setting in – most just wanted the second round vote to be over with. Yet there would be one more surprise. Forty-eight hours before the vote, exiled former President Jean Bertrand Aristide announced his pending arrival back from South Africa. Despite the passive-aggressive efforts of Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy to block his return (at least until after the elections), Aristide calmly boarded a private jet and flew back to his island to be welcomed by thousands at the airport. He calmly addressed the crowd and the media in five languages and called for transparency and unity. To the relief of many, he stopped short of any inflammatory remarks that would have sent the elections into a tailspin. In fact, he did not call on an election boycott and has mostly remained silent since his arrival. (Below- News clip from AlJazeera)

In the end, the second round elections did finally take place on March 20th and were considered to be the most peaceful in Haitian history. The vote tally then reflected the expectations of the population and for only the fourth time in history since Haiti’s independence in 1804, people were able to chose their leader. The celebrations have been loud and joyous – surly a good sign for the beginning of a presidency. But don’t get your hopes up, my Haitian friends have warned, these same people may be calling for his resignation in six months. After all, he is a carnival signer with no political experience and a fair share of shadowy connections to the past dictatorship. But for now, let’s just all enjoy the fact that the election circus is over.

We filmed this from our rooftop