• by IPS Correspondents (port-au-prince)
• Thursday, December 22, 1994
• Inter Press Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dic 22 (IPS) - Haitian socialists joined right-wing politicians this week in denouncing the composition of a provisional Electoral Council set up to run next year's parliamentary and municipal elections.

Members of the Haitian Revolutionary Progressive Nationalist Party (PANPRA) said the Council had too many close associates of president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

All three government representatives on the nine-member panel were from Aristide's home town of Gonaives, said PANPRA leader Serge Gilles.

He wanted the council's composition to be much broader, including independent persons without known affiliations, and who were not active in the politics of the Caribbean nation.

Last week there were similar protests by right-wing political parties led by Hubert de Ronceray's 'Mobilisation for National Development Party'.

PANPRA made its criticism although the party had earlier approved the government's formula for selecting the council - through the provision of a short-list by all parties.

Gilles said council members were chosen "on the basis of a petty and reductive regionalism. If the choice of the cabinet were based on this same partisan logic, parliament could be 90 percent composed of people belonging to the same political family."

The socialists have not yet indicated whether they would participate in the elections, preferring to play a waiting game.

Duly Brutus, head of the group of socialist deputies in parliament, said the council was improperly selected.

Commentators predict that Haiti's elections will be a very lively affair, especially with the presence on the hustings of certain Duvalierist parties determined to revive the memory of the former dynasty started by Francois 'Papa Doc'Duvalier and continued by his son, Jean Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier.

A national uprising against Jean Claude Duvalier in 1986 paved the way for a period of instability, coups and counter-coups that ended with democratic elections won by Aristide.

Aristide himself was overthrown in 1991, a year after his election. International pressure forced out the military and paved the way for Aristide's return in September. He is now serving out his term in office.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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