Haiti’s Election

Election time seems to be happening earlier for some countries. Just a few weeks ago it was Costa Rica who was deciding their new leader and now it is Haiti’s turn as they recently elected their new president just two weeks ago. 63 year old, Rene Preval, became the elected president after some debate over ballot irregularities.
Preval became Haiti’s first elected president in 1996 and ruled the country until 2001 but since his departure the country has worsened. Currently Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere dealing with problems such as unemployment and poor living conditions. Most Haitians live on less than two dollars a day and have no running water or proper medical care.
The major debate about the election was regarding the ballots. Haitian officials chose to divide 85,000 ballots that were cast, but left blank to the percentage of the votes that were cast and actually marked thus giving Preval 51 percent
of the votes. Many people began to riot because they believed that the elections were being rigged to deny Preval
a first round victory.
Preval did, however, say that he vowed to challenge the results if officials insisted on a runoff between him and his running mate Leslie Manigat who came in second. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was quoted as saying that the ballot distribution was “a reasonable way to attempt to resolve a conflict, an impasse that could have led to conflict
and violence.”
For now it seems that the decision is at a final halt and Preval will be the new president. He has stated to the public
that he will not be able to fix the problems of Haiti immediately,
but he did say that once in office his next step will be to fight for Parliament.
A woman by the name of Elvia Pressoir made a comment
to reporters while waiting to see the newly elected president that, “With Preval, we’ll have security, jobs and life will get back to normal.” The current status of Haiti seems dreadful and new hope is shed on this struggling country by the newly elected President Rene Preval hopefully
he will return the country to some level of normalcy.