HAITI ELECTIONS: MINUSTAH LOGISTICS IN PLACE,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PORT AU PRINCE 000031

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA/CAR
DRL
S/CRS
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAR
INR/IAA (BEN-YEHUDA)
TREASURY FOR JEFFREY LEVINE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/05/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PKAO HA
SUBJECT: HAITI ELECTIONS: MINUSTAH LOGISTICS IN PLACE,
POLITICAL DECICSIONS REMAIN

Classified By: DCM Douglas M. Griffiths, reasons 1.4 b and d


1. (C) Summary: The MINUSTAH head of elections operations and
logistics reported that MINUSTAH will be prepared
logistically to administer elections, but that Provisional
Electoral Council (CEP) must take some policy decisions to
avoid additional delays. MINUSTAH is ready to begin training
poll workers, but some regional (BED/BEC) officials are
refusing to contact workers identified by authorities in
Port-au-Prince because they have been left out of the
selection process. Civic education and Communal Electoral
Bureau (BEC) staff have also threatened to disrupt elections
preparations because they have received only partial salaries
or no salaries at all. The CEP and interim government
continue to debate the feasibility of locating voting centers
in the still volatile Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Cite
Soleil; some believe that the centers should be moved to
areas surrounding Cite Soleil. Finally, some political
parties are calling for the CEP to increase the number of
voting centers throughout the countryside. To do so would
delay elections preparations indefinitely, however, and the
Core Group and the IGOH must lend their full support to
maintaining the current plan for voting centers. End Summary.

MINUSTAH Operationally Ready
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2. (SBU) The head of the Joint Operations Center responsible
for elections operations, Colonel MacLeod (Canadian) and
Chief of MINUSTAH electoral operations Mike Collins
(Canadian) met Poloffs January 4 to discuss elections
preparations and potential pitfalls. Despite significant
initial shortcomings, MacLeod said MINUSTAH,s operational
preparations are on track. He felt the best date for an
election would be February 7, because the OAS should be able
to get out 75 to 80 percent of the ID cards by January 22.
According to MacLeod, MINUSTAH needs approximately two weeks
to integrate the OAS card distribution personnel into its
operation and train them for Election Day.

CEP Regional Offices Rejecting Poll Worker Selections
-------------- --------------


3. (SBU) MacLeod said that MINUSTAH and the CEP have trained
election day supervisors, but they have been unable to begin
training for poll workers. The BEC and BED presidents are
reportedly refusing to contact workers identified by CEP
personnel because their personal choices for the positions
are not included.

Salary Issues
--------------


4. (SBU) CEP-contracted civic education workers protested in
front of the CEP January 2, threatening violence unless they
were paid. According to MacLeod, UNDP opposes paying these
workers because the CEP hired 4,500 workers rather than the
2,500 called for the CEP-endorsed budget. Further, the
workers did not appear to have kept records of their
activities, and he assumed that many had done no work at all.
MacLeod said he and CEP Director General Jacques Bernard
take the threat of violence seriously, and have recommended
that the UNDP pay the workers to diffuse the situation and
demand that workers begin to document their hours worked.
UNDP has not, however, accepted this recommendation and does
not intend to make payment.



5. (SBU) Additionally, some BEC workers have threatened to
impede elections because they have not been paid full
salaries. The disagreement arose after the CEP approved a 50

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percent pay raise to BEC workers over UNDP objections.
Though the CEP covered some of the salary increase, the UNDP
did not agree to pay the remainder, and workers received less
than expected as a result.

Voting Centers in Cite Soleil Under Debate
--------------


6. (C) MacLeod reported that the PM and others in the IGOH
and CEP are considering eliminating voting centers in Cite
Soleil for security reasons. MacLeod disapproved of the
idea, noting that MINUSTAH would need to ensure security for
the voters of Cite Soleil in any case, whether voting in
their own neighborhood or walking to a center on the
outskirts of the slum. Macleod speculated that the gangs had
cooperated with the registration drive only because they
wanted people to have ID cards, which will be required for
many transactions such as money transfers. Now, he guessed,
the gangs would attempt to derail elections. According to
MINUSTAH elections official Martin Landi, the BEC president
in Cite Soleil has already begun to politicize voting in Cite
Soleil by attempting to change the location of voting sites
and load the list of poll workers with political cronies.

Number and Location of Voting Centers
--------------


7. (SBU) A number of political parties have threatened to
boycott the elections unless the CEP relocates some of the
voting centers and increases their number. Parties have
demanded more voting centers in rural some areas and the
relocation of voting centers closer to population centers.
Parties also complain that many voters have been incorrectly
assigned to voting centers outside of their area of
residence, thus affecting their ability to vote for deputy
and local candidates. MacLeod suggested that moving some
voting centers would be relatively easy, and would only
involve reassigning a relatively small number of voters.
However, moving larger numbers of voters from one deputy
district to an entirely different one would force MINUSTAH to
print, sort, and distribute extra ballots. CEP Director
General Jacques Bernard has said he plans to yield to the
party demands that will be easy to accomplish, and sort out
district assignment errors without necessitating additional
printing, if possible. He has given his staff until January
20 to finalize all of the voter assignments.


8. (C) Comment: The issues detailed above can be quickly
resolved, and we will push the CEP and MINUSTAH leadership to
take quick actions to do so. The controversy surrounding the
location and numbers of voting centers is sensitive, however,
and we will take additional steps to ensure that the IGOH and
the Core Group stand behind the CEP and MINUSTAH in
maintaining the current number of voting centers. Any
large-scale effort to revisit the number and location of
voting centers would derail the distribution of voting lists
and ballots and indefinitely delay elections preparations.
Haitian authorities have traditionally organized thousands of
voting centers throughout the countryside that were
convenient to Haitians living in even the remotest areas. At
the same time, however, this far-flung network of loosely
supervised voting centers allowed for instances of fraud and
manipulation of the process. Bearing in mind the resource
limitations, MINUSTAH and the CEP have made reasonable
compromises in limiting the number of voting centers. The
parties must be made to understand that mistakes will be
fixed where possible, but that in order to ensure a timely
transfer of power, elections must proceed with a more limited
number of voting centers that ensures the integrity of the
process. If some Haitians must travel a bit further than in
previous elections in order to cast their ballots, then all

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actors should come together in encouraging Haitians to make
this effort and participate in the process. End Comment.

CARNEY