Now that I've discovered Frank and Jillian Thorp through their blog On the Goat Path, I'm planning to spend a lot of time with them. Here's another excellent post, with great photos: Elections in Haiti Experience Widespead Irregularities As Candidates Call for New Vote. Excerpt:
About 3 months ago I started to make a point of asking the Haitians I would speak to if they were going to vote, and 90% of them said ‘no’. The responses were typically the same, but included at least one of these reasons:
1. I don’t have a voter registration card.
2. I don’t really care.
3. The government doesn’t do anything anyways.
4. I don’t like any of the candidates.
5. It doesn’t matter who I vote for, they will steal our money no matter what.
While many of these complaints are the same no matter where you vote, the reality is that the government here has never given the people a good reason to participate in the democratic process. Preval is the first president in the history of Haiti to be elected into office and finish his term (if he finishes it in January, of course), and he has done a terrible job. The country continues to deteriorate, especially after the earthquake, and the government has done nothing to stop it.
Unfortunately, the heavy presence of NGOs, both large and small, has not helped this situation either. Aid organizations are, in fact, incredibly un-democratic, considering that they cause people to rely on them instead of the government. They provide Haitians with the goods and services that a government should be providing, so when the population is in need they don’t go to their local officials, they go to the aid organizations instead. Whether or not the government can provide those services doesn’t matter, they have been dis-empowered to the point of being irrelevant in their own country, which is never a good thing.
