Reply #22: errr....even the Carter Institute said elections were rigged [View All]

sorry but I wouldn't call the guy "democratically elected" based on these reports

re: 1995 election

The Carter Center report on the ensuing election -- written by Carter confidant and former National Security Council advisor Robert Pastor -- documents the disgraceful conduct of the Aristide government and his Lavalas party. "Of the 13 elections I have observed, the June 25 Haitian elections were the most disastrous technically, with the most insecure count," Pastor said in the report. "I personally witnessed the compromise of one-third of the ballot boxes in Port-au-Prince."

According to the report, the election was riddled with graft, fraud and chaos, with widespread irregularities, ballots burned, hundreds of voting stations never opened and tens of thousands of people never able to vote.

The report, issued by the Atlanta-based Carter Center, exposes Aristide's one-party "Lavalas" rule, with its widespread corruption, mismanagement and ballot manipulating, particularly in the June 25 election. Aristide's allies swept local and parliamentary seats in that balloting.

President Carter's critique of Aristide is especially startling, considering the long political association between the two. When Aristide won Haiti's 1990 presidential election, the Carter Center was at the forefront of groups supporting the results

A critical part of Aristide's plan for seizing total power in Haiti has been his illegal and authoritarian command of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) that conducted the fraudulent June election. Sensing trouble in March, Carter visited Haiti and was formally rebuffed by Aristide. Unofficially, he was greeted by hostile crowds and vicious graffiti, all engineered by Lavalas street gangs intent on embarrassing the former U.S. chief executive

http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1248.pdf

and these reports on 2000 election from politics and elections.com


Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide won election as president of Haiti again, winning 92% of the vote according to the country's electoral council. All major opposition parties boycotted the election.

Aristide's Lavalas Family Party won all nine Senate seats that were contested, giving it all but one seat in the upper house. Lavalas Family also won 80% of the House of Assembly seats in may, June and July legislative elections. Opponents charge that those elections were rigged to enable Aristide to govern with, effectively, one-party rule.

Aristide was first elected in 1990, ending nearly 200 years of dictatorship. A bloody army coup kicked him out seven months later, followed by a terroristic military government, and than an invasion by U.S. troops to restore Aristide to power.

Opposition activist Evans Paul said ballot boxes were stuffed and tally sheets altered to make it look like a higher turnout. Some polls closed hours early for lack of voters.

more...

http://www.politicsandelections.com/international/hai.htm