HAITI: PREVAL'S ALLIES FARE WELL IN SENATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PORT AU PRINCE 000623 SIPDIS DEPT FOR WHA/EX, WHA/CAR, S/CRS, AND INR/IAA WHA/EX PLEASE PASS TO USOAS, USAID/LAC SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/30/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM ASEC HA SUBJECT: HAITI: PREVAL'S ALLIES FARE WELL IN SENATE ELECTIONS REF: PORT AU PRINCE 601 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires a.i. Thomas C. Tighe, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Candidates of the pro-government Lespwa coalition and other allies of President Rene Preval won seven of the eleven vacant Senate seats in play during the June 21 second round of elections, according to preliminary results. Only eleven percent of eligible voters participated in the election. Opposition parties were generally satisfied with the organization of the electoral process, although we expect many losing candidates to file protests before the July 2 deadline. Final results are expected by July 10. End summary. MODEST GAINS FOR ALLIES OF PRESIDENT PREVAL -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Allies of President Rene Preval fared well in the second round of partial Senate elections June 21, according to preliminary results announced June 29 by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). Candidates representing the pro-government Lespwa coalition were declared winners in five of eleven races, which will give Lespwa 12 seats in the 30-seat Senate if the preliminary results are confirmed. The Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats (Fusion),Haiti in Action (AAA),the Struggling People's Organization (OPL),Konba, UCADDE, and an independent candidate each picked up one. (Note: UCADDE and Konba support President Preval. End note.) Voter participation, at 10.9 percent, was just below the levels reached in the first round of elections April 19, despite the lifting of restrictions on vehicle traffic and a smaller number of last-minute changes to polling station locations. ¶3. (SBU) Winners of the second round included Joel Joseph John (Lespwa, West),a former Lavalas activist who faced persistent allegations that the National Palace was illicitly financing his campaign, and Jean-Charles Moise (Lespwa, North),an advisor to President Preval, Lavalas militant, and former mayor implicated in the violent suppression of anti-Aristide protests in 2003 in Cap Haitien. Hyppolite Melius (OPL, Northwest),Jean Rodolphe Joazile (Fusion, Northeast),and Jean Maxime Roumer (Lespwa, Grand Anse) are incumbents whose terms as senators expired in 2008. Wencesclas Lambert (Lespwa),brother of Senator Joseph Lambert, won a narrow victory in the Southeast amid controversy after another of his brothers and several other supporters were arrested on election day with illegal weapons in his possession and subsequently released. APPEALS LIKELY IN SOME DEPARTMENTS -------------- ¶4. (C) Any protests filed by losing candidates will be considered by special committees within the Provisional Electoral Council. Appeals seemed especially likely in the South, where a margin of less than one percent of votes cast separated the winner and loser. We also anticipate appeals in the Southeast and Artibonite, where the races were relatively close and results from several dozen polling stations were not included in the provisional tally for various reasons. Results from a total of 48 polling stations never reached the tabulation center, according to an OAS official, and another 144 were excluded from the final count due to irregularities in the conduct of the vote or in the tallysheets themselves. Inquiries are reportedly still underway in the Grand'Anse and Southeast departments, where violence and some irregularities marked an otherwise peaceful day of voting across the country (reftel). MAINSTREAM OPPOSITION, FANMI LAVALAS REACT -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Mainstream opposition parties expressed measured satisfaction with the June 21 balloting, although leaders of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas were more critical. OPL leader Edgard Leblanc Fils said he was satisfied with the CEP's conduct of the election, but he PORT AU PR 00000623 002 OF 002 regretted incidents of violence and intimidation in the Southeast, where OPL's Ricard Pierre was fighting a tough battle with Senator Lambert's brother. On June 30, an OPL spokesman said his party would appeal the results in the Southeast and the Artibonite. OPL Senator Jean Joseph Pierre-Louis announced that, based on the conduct of the elections, he would not join other Senators who have threatened to block the accession of victorious candidates to the upper chamber. Fusion's Victor Benoit, for his part, told the press he was generally satisfied with the organization of the process. ¶6. (C) Fanmi Lavalas leaders, who had called on voters to stay home on election day, tried to put the worst face on the elections. Speaking the week of June 22, Senator Rudy Heriveaux (West) called the elections "a masquerade and a comedy," that demonstrated the complete "failure" of the Provisional Electoral Council. He pointed to the low turnout as a "victory" for democracy. Commenting June 30, Heriveaux called the election results evidence of a "totalitarian, dictatorial project" and criticized the international community for remaining silent. Renan Armstrong Charlot, a new member of the Fanmi Lavalas Executive Committee, told Poloff that the second round vindicated the Lavalas argument that voter dissatisfaction with President Preval and Lavalas' call for a boycott were responsible for the low turnout. Although international observers suggested prohibitions on vehicle traffic were responsible for the low turnout in the first round, he said, the removal of those restrictions in the second round did little to encourage Haitians to vote. LITTLE PROGRESS IN CENTER DEPARTMENT INQUIRY -------------- ¶7. (SBU) The CEP has not officially announced when Center Department elections will be held. CEP Director General Pierre-Louis Opont told an elections technical committee on June 25 that the CEP has reviewed findings and produced a report on possible election and criminal violations during the April 19 first-round Senate elections in the Center Department. He said that the report highlights several "discrepancies" - which he did not explain - that must be resolved. Opont indicated the CEP had requested police officials to conduct a second review. ¶8. (C) Opont said it was premature for the CEP to assign a date for Center Department elections. The CEP wants to ensure that both electoral and criminal violations are carefully considered -- even if the CEP has no jurisdiction on the latter. (Comment: The CEP appears in no hurry to announce results from Central Department investigations. Some suspect that Center Department elections will be held simultaneously with the next one-third Senate and indirect elections, tentatively scheduled for November 2009. This is particularly likely given the CEP recently stated it has exhausted donor and GOH funds contributed for the first and second rounds and will require additional support for any new elections. End comment.) TIGHE