The CEP announced the release of preliminary results for the October 25 presidential election today. At a 4pm press conference held at the electoral council's headquarters, CEP officials announced that the top two finishers were PHTK's Jovenel Moise (32.81%) and LAPEH's Jude Celestin (25.27%). Moise Jean-Charles of Pitit Dessalines finished third (14.27%) and Fanmi Lavalas' Maryse Narcisse came in fourth (7.05%).
Jovenel Moise, handpicked by President Michel Martelly as his political successor, welcomed the announcement at a press conference held just hours after the CEP's. "PHTK celebrates this first victory, which is proof that the people have understood our message of development." Moise's campaign made his succesful Agritrans business, which grows and exports bananas from a number of plantations in the North of the country, an integral part of his political image, dubbing the PHTK candidate "Neg Banann Nan" ("The Banana Man").
The other contenders, meanwhile, reacted with outrage and disbelief to the preliminary results. Jean-Hector Anacasis, coordinator of Celestin's LAPEH party, stated on radio that the results were the product of fraud and declared his party's intention to contest them.
Moise Jean-Charles, meanwhile, called his supporters out into the streets. "We will stay mobilized until the people's vote is respected," Jean-Charles stated on Twitter. Jean-Henry Céant, Eric Jean-Baptise, Mario Andresol and other candidates added their voices to the chorus of recriminations.
Demonstrations and burning tires barricades have already begun around Port-au-Prince, and one Pitit Dessalines protestor was reportedly killed outside the party's headquarters in Delmas 33.
According to the preliminary results, 1,538,393 valid votes were cast in the presidential contest. There were also 120,066 invalid votes
and 22,238 votes for no candidate, making "no candidate" the 8th place
finisher in the presidential field.
Turnout on October 25 was 26.4%, a participation rate similar to that of the 2010, when elections were held after an earthquake and amid cholera outbreak. This level of turnout is extremely low for Haiti; turnout in previous presidential elections was much higher, reaching 59.2% in 2006, 78.3.% in 2000, and 50.2% in 1990. Such a low turnout means that only 8.7% of registered voters cast a ballot for Jovenel Moise and only 6.7% for Jude Celestin, while the overwhelming majority did not vote.
The results apparently were not endorsed by all members of the CEP. Jacceus Joseph, the human rights sector's representative on the council, reportedly did not sign his name on the published results. The CEP still has yet to release results for the legislative and municipal elections.
Top 15 finishers:
Jovenel Moise (PHTK) : 32.81% (511 992 Votes)
Jude Celestin (LAPEH): 25.27% (394 390 Votes)
Jean Charles Moise (Pitit Dessalines): 14.27% (222 646 Votes)
Maryse Narcisse (Fanmi Lavalas) : 7.05% (110 049 Votes)
Eric Jean Baptiste (MAS) : 3.63% (56 671 Votes)
Jean Henry Ceant (Renmen Ayiti) : 2.50% (39 005 Votes)
Sauveur Pierre Etienne (OPL) : 1.94% (30 227 Votes)
Steven Irvenson Benoit (Konviksyon) : 1.14% (17 851 Votes)
Steeve Khawly (Bouclier) : 1.08% (16 791 Votes)
Samuel Madistin (MOPOD) : 0.88% (13 656 Votes)
Jean Chavannes Jeune (CANAAN) : 0.67% (10 482 Votes)
Maxo Joseph (RANDEVOUS) : 0.57% (8 943 Votes)
Jean Clarens Renois (UNIR-AYITI) : 0.57% (8 844 Votes)
Chavannes Jean Baptiste (KontraPep la) : 0.48% (7 520 Votes)
Mario Andresol (Independant) : 0.46% (7 251 Votes)
Cross-posted from CEPR's Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Blog
On Monday, Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced that
the preliminary results of the October 25 presidential and legislative
elections, expected to be announced today, would be delayed until
Thursday. The delay has been attributed to the formation of a committee
by the CEP to investigate allegations of fraud coming from political
parties and local observer groups. The committee consists of five
members of the electoral council. Of the 162 complaints received, the
committee says 43 are being followed up on, though few are placing their
trust in the process.
The elections were praised after there were only a few sporadic
outbursts of violence, leading many in the international community to
quickly conclude that there were few problems. Just as it had done in
August, the Organization of American States (OAS) proclaimed the day
after the vote that any problems “did not affect the overall course of
the election.” After violence shut down nearly one out of every six
voting centers in the August legislative elections, this was apparently
the new standard by which to judge the elections.
At least a half-dozen leading presidential candidates have come out
before results are even announced to denounce widespread fraud in favor
of the government’s candidate, Jovenèl Moïse. The allegations have been
wide ranging: replacement of ballot boxes with fakes distributed by
ambulances, mass ballot box stuffing, and burning of ballots for
opposition candidates. Little proof has been provided to back up these
claims. But the most blatant example was there for everyone to see on
election day, and was in fact anticipated by electoral officials and
international observers.
In Haiti’s elections, political party monitors, called mandataires,
are allowed inside voting areas in order to ensure the impartiality of
electoral officials and to sign off on the count at the end of the day.
In August’s first-round legislative election, these party monitors cried
foul, as not enough accreditation passes were printed and only some
were allowed in during the vote.
In response, the CEP flooded the parties with passes. In total, over
916,000 were distributed according to the organization’s president,
Pierre Louis Opont. Unlike average voters, whose identification must be
checked with the electoral list at the polling center where they are
registered, monitors are allowed to vote wherever they are present. This
became, in many ways, an election of mandataires.
International and local observers have estimated turnout at between
25 and 30 percent, meaning there were roughly 1.6 million voters. With
over 900,000 accreditation passes for monitors, and thousands more for
observation groups (whose members are subject to the same open voting
rules), it means over 50 percent of votes could come from these groups.
All 54 candidates vying for the presidency received more than 13,700
passes, enough to be present at each voting booth in the country. Few,
however, had the capacity or the money to actually use them. The result
was that parties sold them to the highest bidder in the days leading up
to the vote. Local observers said passes were going for as much as $30.
By Sunday, they were going for as little as a few dollars.
The system for monitoring the vote had turned into a black market for
vote buying, where those with the most money were most able to take
advantage. And it was entirely predictable.
Recognizing the potential problem, there was an effort in the weeks before the vote to have the mandataires
register with specific voting centers, allowing poll workers to better
monitor and track their votes. It never happened. Instead, mandataires’
information was taken down on a blank sheet of paper by poll workers.
Sometimes even this didn’t happen.
While monitors’ accreditation passes were supposed to be marked after
voting and their fingers marked with indelible ink, local observers
found that these measures were not always taken, “allowing certain
representatives to vote several times.”
It wasn’t just through the black market that parties could use this
to their advantage, however. There is also a problem stemming from the
law regulating political party formation, which allows parties to form
with as few as 20 members. This led to a proliferation of parties over
the past couple of years culminating in 128 parties registering
candidates for legislative, local and presidential elections.
Opposition parties and political observers estimate that at least a
dozen parties are participating only as proxies for the government.
Though any actor could benefit from these flaws, it’s only the larger
parties with resources who truly could take advantage of them.
Now, all eyes are turned on the Central Tabulation Center, located in
an industrial park in Haiti’s capital, where the 13,725 tally sheets
from each voting booth across the country are being inputted into the
system and checked for fraud. With more than 99 percent finalized, 489
have been quarantined for irregularities, 3.6 percent of the total. It
is unclear, though, how many were fraudulent and how many simply
suffered from clerical errors, rendering them void.
Local observers have called for transparency at the tabulation center
and are requesting an audit be performed to determine the “degree and
extent of the involvement of people who used political party
representative or observer cards to vote.” Relatedly, the observers are
requesting the CEP to investigate “The quantity and legality of the
number of votes cast by voters whose names were not listed at the
polling station where they voted.”
On Tuesday, eight presidential candidates backed up the calls from
local human rights groups and asked the CEP to allow the formation of an
independent committee to investigate these issues.
But actually doing this is no simple task. Each of the 13,725 voting
booths in Haiti produces a tally sheet at the end of the day. These
sheets are then brought to the central tabulation center where they are
scanned into the computer system. Technicians can check and ensure that
voters from the electoral list correspond with those who voted and can
perform other checks for irregularities.
Checking for fraud in off-list voting is more complex. Because the
names were written down on a blank sheet of paper, technicians would
need to manually enter all of these, likely hundreds of thousands. These
would then need to be cross-checked to ensure that monitors with the
same ID were not voting at multiple locations. Even with this, it is
likely that only a fraction of these voters were ever accounted for on
election day by poll workers. With pressure to release the results as
soon as possible, and with over 99 percent already entered into the
system, it is unlikely that the hard work of actually accounting for all
of these voters will ever be done.
With up to hundreds of thousands of voting passes for sale, it’s not
hard to see how Haiti’s presidential election could be won by those with
the fattest pockets.
