What to make of last week’s elections in Haiti…

That’s my prescription for Haiti’s terminal illness….

As far as these elections are concerned, I am constrained to conclude that I do not see how the election of (projected winner) Rene Preval – for a second tenure as president – will help restore law and order to Haiti and stimulate sustainable life in its beleaguered and moribund economy. Because, despite the combined efforts of UN peacekeepers and the caretaker government of Gérard Latortue, all of the destabilising forces that rendered Preval a feckless president from 1996 to 2001 seem determined to do the same again. And, indeed, no force is more ominous in this respect than that of Preval’s erstwhile mentor, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who seems poised to make his fated return….

“I think this election…is going to demonstrate, as secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice) said when she was here last fall, how Bertrand Aristide is a man of the past.” [U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Tim Carney]

Alas, Ambassador Carney’s quote betrays a classic example of ostrich diplomacy: bury one’s head in the soft Caribbean sand and pretend the problem does not exist. Because, it is ironic and perhaps instructive that as they plead to diminish Aristide as a cause celebre, if not a living martyr for a critical mass of Haitians, the Americans invoke his name to validate last week’s ambivalent elections and inspire hope for Haiti’s future.

But their extraterritorial denials do not vitiate the fact that Aristide is no more a man of the past today – after being forced into exile to South Africa (allegedly) by American forces in 2004, than he was a man of the past in 1993 – when he was forced into exile to the United States by Haitian forces – only to make a triumphal return two years later to resume his presidency.

(Note: Just as he was exiled in America for 2 years, Aristide has now been exiled in South Africa for 2 years. And, this is a man with a pathological messianic complex. Therefore, what mortal hand or eye dares predict his fateful symmetry?)

Indeed, that the Bush administration is putting more pressure on Preval to renounce Aristide than to announce his plans to resuscitate the Haitian economy indicates the clear and present fear the Americans have of Aristide’s imminent return. And, their fears are well founded: After all, the vast majority of leaders in the Americas still believe Aristide’s damning claims that he was the victim of a coup d’etat because President Bush (and local businessmen – mostly mulatto bourgeois Europhiles calling themselves “the Group of 184”), found his governing socialist policies politically and ideologically untenable. And these regional leaders never fully recognized the US-installed Latortue government as legitimate.

Moreover, the Americans can be forgiven their suspicion that, despite his pronouncements, Preval remains as devoted to Aristide as ever. (Recall that Aristide practically anointed Preval as his successor in 1996 – only to oust him and reclaim power in 2001.) And, it’s an open secret that most Haitians who voted for Preval, did so only because they expect him to facilitate the return of their Lavalas leader Aristide to his rightful place in Haiti…. (Which, incidentally, makes Preval’s suggestion that he would welcome Aristide’s return only to put him on trial patently disingenuous.)

According to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the foreign minister of his host country South Africa:

“Aristide is not here for life. The president of Haiti is a guest in our country and when he arrived in South Africa, we said that he will be a guest in our country as long as it is necessary. As far as we are concerned, he is not here for life, as far as he is concerned, he is not here for life. That is why it is important to see what happens after these elections…and see whether it is conducive to both himself and the government for him to go back.”

It is noteworthy that even Dlamini-Zuma refers to Aristide, not as the former or ex President, but as “The president of Haiti”. And, I assure you, that is no mere diplomatic slip of the tongue…

Adding to U.S. fears is the profound recognition that Haiti, like other countries in the Americas, will have far less regard for its Damoclean sword of financial aid than it had just years ago. Because petrodollars from President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and bi-lateral aid from the burgeoning super-power communists of China can effectively marginalize any U.S. threat to withhold aid if Preval (or Aristide) does not do its bidding.

Nonetheless, besides unwieldy violence and the spectre of Aristide’s return, a Preval presidency seems fatally threatened by the elite Group of 184 that participated so shrewdly in undermining his first tenure as president. In fact, in an interview on the eve of elections, sidelined presidential candidate Dumarsais Siméus told the New York Times that:

“With the prospect of Preval to be president, the elite is already lining up and getting ready to derail him from governing.”

Clearly, with so many forces arrayed against him, it’s difficult to see how Preval governs Haiti any better this time around. But as I lamented in this previous article, there are no saints (or even moral actors) in this ongoing nightmare. And I fear this election might prove as a
ll other hopeful developments have done: as just another opportunity lost for Haiti….