Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive (centre) and Jose Miguel Insulza (left), Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, look on during a press conference on the election crisis in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The OAS’s attempt to rubberstamp the flawed December presidential election has run into trouble. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

It didn’t get much attention in the media, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did something quite surprising on Sunday. After taping interviews on five big Sunday talkshows about Egypt, she then boarded a plane to Haiti. Yes, Haiti. The most impoverished country in the hemisphere, not exactly a “strategic ally” or a global player on the world’s political stage.

Inquiring minds might want to know why the United States’ top foreign policy official would have to go to Haiti in the midst of the worst diplomatic crisis she has faced. The answer is that there is also a crisis in Haiti. And it is a crisis that – unlike the humanitarian crisis that Haiti has suffered since the earthquake last year – Washington really cares about.

Like the Egyptians, Haitians are calling for free and fair elections. But in this case, Washington will not support free and fair elections, even nominally. Quite the opposite, in fact. For weeks now, the US government has been threatening the government of Haiti with various punishments if it refuses to reverse the results of the first round of its presidential elections. Washington wants Haiti to eliminate the government’s candidate and leave only two, rightwing candidates to compete in the second round.

Just three weeks ago, this looked like a done deal. The Organisation of American States (OAS) expert verification mission compiled a report on Haiti’s 28 November presidential elections, and on 10 January it was leaked to the press. The report recommended moving the government’s candidate, Jude Celestin, into third place by just 0.3% of the vote; leaving rightwing candidates Mirlande Manigat, a former first lady, and Michel Martelly, a popular musician, in first and second place, respectively. This was followed with various statements and threats from US and French officials that Haiti must accept this change of result. US officials strongly implied that aid to Haiti would be cut if the government didn’t do as told. It looked as if desperately poor Haiti would have to give in.

But then, there was pushback. President Préval noted that six of the seven “experts” from the OAS mission were from the US, Canada and France – the three countries that led the effort to overthrow Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 2004.

Then, the OAS report was found to be so deeply flawed as to be worthless in determining which candidates should proceed to a second round. The report, for instance, ignored the problem of more than 150,000 missing votes that – given the voting patterns in the areas affected – would have shifted the result to Celestin. It also examined only a sample of the tally sheets, and did not use any statistical inference to estimate how the 92% of the tally sheets that it did not examine might have affected the result.

The call for new elections began to grow. It was joined from the start by 12 presidential candidates who had competed in the deeply-flawed first round, in which only about a quarter of Haitians voted. This was down from 59.3% in the previous presidential election, partly because the country’s most popular political party – Fanmi Lavalas, which supports Aristide – was excluded from participating in the election.

Préval himself has been reported in the press to support new elections.

Then, on Tuesday 1 February, the congressional black caucus leaders, in their first break with the foreign policy of the Obama administration, issued a statement that they called a “response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support of the OAS report”:

“The CBC urges the United States and the international community to uphold the ideals of fairness and support a new Haiti election process that is free and fair, respecting the rights of the Haitian people.”

But it is the rights of the Haitian people that Washington does not want to respect. Another reason that very likely contributed to Hillary Clinton’s sudden trip to Haiti on Sunday was that the Haitian government decided it is willing to issue a diplomatic passport to former President Aristide, who has been kept in exile in South Africa since the US-organised coup ousted him. Recent WikiLeaks cables show that the United States has pressed hard to keep him out of Haiti, and to prevent him from exerting any influence from abroad. And his party, Famni Lavalas, was banned from participating in the November elections, as in other elections since he was removed from the country on a US plane in 2004. Aristide issued a statement on 19 January that he was ready to come home.

It may seem strange that US officials care so much about controlling a government as poor and without influence as Haiti, but they clearly do. They not only helped organise the 2004 coup, but had also contributed to the death squads who terrorised the populace after Aristide was overthrown the first time in 1991.

The amazing thing about the last two months is that US officials are meeting such resistance from within Haiti, and from the Congressional Black Caucus – which forced then President Bill Clinton to restore Aristide to the presidency in 1994. Signs of further international support for democracy in Haiti were shown on 26 January, when the OAS resolution on Haiti failed to endorse the recommendations of its own mission’s report – due to resistance from left governments in Latin America. And the Rio Group, which includes 23 nations encompassing almost all of Latin America and the Caribbean, was also blocked by left governments from passing a resolution on Haiti.

The government of Haiti is scheduled to announce its decision on the elections on Wednesday, and it may well fold under the enormous pressure from Washington. But with Aristide’s return imminent, the battle is far from over.

It is not only Egyptians who want free and fair elections, and not only the Arab world that is resisting US-backed tyranny.

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By INGRID ARNESEN

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—The Organization of American States said Haiti’s presidential election should be considered valid despite a host of problems, giving a big boost to the government and election authorities here.

The judgement from the main international observers of the election could dampen claims of widespread fraud made by a majority of the 18 candidates that took part in Sunday’s vote.

The election was also marred by disorganization, sporadic violence and incorrect voting lists.

“As serious as some of the irregularities were, they did not invalidate the electoral process,” said Colin Granderson, head of the election observer mission to Haiti from the OAS, which counts all independent countries of the Americas as its members.

On Monday, ten candidates joined together to say the vote should be canceled, claiming itvote was rigged to help the ruling Inite Party’s candidate, Jude Celestin, a party bureaucrat.

The Haitian government, Mr. Celestin, and electoral authorities didn’t respond to the allegations.

Late on Sunday, election officials said the vote had gone well in general terms, citing problems in just 56 of some 1,500 voting stations. It said it would announce the results in the coming days.

Given the crowded field, it is likely the election will go to a runoff in January between the top two finishers.

The confusion surrounding the vote was a bad sign for a country still reeling from last January’s devastating earthquake and struggling to contain a deadly cholera epidemic.

Haiti also has a long history of political instability and violence.

Sporadic protests flared Sunday, but had died down by Monday. Yet most people remained off the streets amid fears of violence.

One leading contender, popular rap singer-turned-politician Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, held a news conference on Monday to announce that he was the likely victor—though a day earlier he had called for the vote to be suspended. He didn’t say how he reached his conclusion.

The Haitian people “made their choice. We request that the (election authority) respect the choice of the population,” he said.

Mr. Martelly appealed for Haitians to remain calm, while warning that the government “should understand clearly that the population is ready to fight for its rights.”

On Sunday, Mr. Martelly joined 11 other candidates in calling for the election to be suspended. But he and another leading contender, former first lady Mirlande Manigat, didn’t show up to Monday’s news conference by the remaining 10 candidates protesting the vote.

Many Haitians were despondent after a vote plagued by problems, especially flawed voter lists that left many people unable to cast a ballot.

Antenor Joseph, a 44-year-old truck driver, said he regretted having voted at all. “This was a bad start. I voted but now I regret it because the elections are spoiled. I don’t see any winner here,” he said.

Bob Maguire, a Haiti expert and professor of international relations at Trinity Washington University in Washington, said the international community should take the lead in the coming days to investigate the allegations of fraud and ensure the next government in Haiti has legitimacy.

“I think we learned that not holding elections in New Orleans soon after Katrina was the right decision. The logistics were just really daunting for the Haitians,” he said.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE — Even as the international community continues to appeal for calm, Haitians gathered in the streets of Gonaives and elsewhere Monday to protest a decision to move ahead with election results despite allegations of voter fraud.

Thousands took to the streets to rally against what they believed was widespread wrongdoing in the day’s presidential race, including pre-stuffed ballots and thousands missing from voter rolls.

Voting bureaus were trashed and set on fire, international elections monitors withdrew in the middle of the voting, and some precincts closed due to sporadic violence.

At least a dozen of the 19 presidential candidates on the ballot have asked for the results to be voided, and a transitional government be charged with organizing new elections. They are accusing President René Préval and his INITE political party of “massive fraud” to advance his chosen presidential successor, Jude Célestin, former head of the government road building agency.

“It’s a very bad signal to the international community who is willing to help and not just from the opposition, but from the candidates of the ruling party,” Albert Ramdin, the assistant secretary general of the Organization of American States, said of Haiti’s current crisis.

Ramdin, who is in Port-au-Prince, said Haiti cannot afford a violent meltdown.

“Violence will not solve Haiti’s problems. Divisions will not solve Haiti’s problems. What Haiti needs is an understanding from all of the minds that they need to work together and the only way to do that is with proper dialogue,” he said.

The OAS and Caribbean Community led an international electoral observer mission. He said the international community knows things went wrong.

“We are not saying that was not the case. I strongly condemn the case of the death. I strongly condemn political leaders who are intimidating their supporters to become violent. Those things should not happen. The preparations should have been much more timely,” Ramdin said.

“It’s a very bad signal to the international community who is willing to help and not just from the opposition, but from the candidates of the ruling party.”

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking Florida Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also expressed her regret regarding the allegations of irregularities the elections and called for “immediate action to correct the situation. ”

“They must be investigated immediately and steps taken to correct this wrong perpetrated against the democratic aspirations of the Haitian people,” she said.

She too also called for calm going forward.

“Violence must be avoided,” she said. “All parties and officials must work together to ensure that all necessary steps are taken so that the Haitian people can be confident in a fair and accurate result which reflects their will.

On Sunday night the president of the Provisional Electoral Council Gaillot Dorsinvil said the day was realized and “successful.”

The CEP said only 3.56 percent or 56 of the 1,500 voting centers had problems and that the results would, for now, be recognized.

Others disagreed.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. called on the elections to be rejected by the international community.

“The international community should reject these elections and affirm support for democratic institutions in Haiti,” Mark Weisbrot, co-director of The Center for Economic and Policy Research said. “Otherwise, Haiti could be left with a government that is widely seen as illegitimate.”

Weisbrot called the elections a “farce from start to finish.”

He noted that Fanmi Lavalas, the political party founded by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not allowed to participate and that the CEP had been plagued by credibility issues throughout the process.

In Haiti, as protesters walked through the streets, some snatched tires and set them aflame at major intersections. Young men threw rocks - a few hurling them over the base for the United Nations.

Meanwhile, there were reports that 1,500 protesters gathered in Saint Marc, a seaport between Gonaives and Port-au-Prince.

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