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<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2010/haiti’s-election-circus-continues-and-wyclef-jean-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer/">
http://sfbayview.com/2010/haiti’s-election-circus-continues-and-wyclef-jean-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer/</a>
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<b>Haiti’s Election Circus Continues, and Wyclef Jean Won’t Take No for
an Answer<br><br>
by Charlie Hinton, Haiti Action Committee<br><br>
</b>On Friday, August 20, Haiti’s Electoral Council ruled that only 19 of
the 34 declared candidates could run for president, eliminating the other
15, including rap artist Wyclef Jean, supposedly because he didn’t meet
Haiti’s constitutional 5 year residency requirement, but more likely
because worldwide reporting of Mr. Jean’s lack of qualifications and
financial hanky panky, as well as internal Haitian political wrangling,
made him too toxic. However he soon announced that he will sue to get on
the ballot, providing the next episode for Haiti’s ongoing presidential
election soap opera.<br><br>
And the election does go on. Even though Haiti lives under military
occupation with more than 11,500 uniformed UN personnel on the ground
(military and police); even though the earthquake destroyed most election
registration records; even though more than a million people remain
living in squalid tent and tarp encampments in Port-au-Prince and points
south, and would miraculously have to be re-registered in 90 days; even
though the money that will be spent on this election could feed and house
thousands of these Haitians in extreme need; even though the president’s
term has been extended on an emergency basis, despite widespread protest;
even though the largest and most popular party, <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i> has
been excluded from running candidates, and its leader, twice overthrown
president Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues to be banished from
returning to Haiti; even though the “international community”
has supported dictators and tyrants throughout Haiti’s history, including
the murderous Duvalier family, these elections go on. Why? There’s a term
for it. Instead of holding a free and fair election, where all parties,
candidates, and voters openly participate, this is a “demonstration
election.”<br><br>
As defined by Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead in their book,
Demonstration Elections, the purpose of a demonstration election is to
substitute the form of democracy for its substance, in order to prevent
real grassroots democracy. Yes, the purpose of a demonstration election
is to prevent grassroots democracy. <br><br>
In the case of Haiti, <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i> and the <i>Lavalas</i>
movement have overwhelmingly demonstrated their popularity and influence
in every election since 1990, when Aristide was elected with 67% of the
vote. The Haitian majority loves President Aristide. He said he
wanted to raise Haitians from a state of misery to “poverty with
dignity,” and he practiced what he preached, building schools, parks,
housing, hospitals and clinics, and a medical school, despite having his
government starved of funds and loans, because he put the needs of poor
Haitians ahead of the demands of international bankers. (see
<a href="http://haitisolidarity.net/downloads/We_Will_Not_Forget_2010.pdf">
http://haitisolidarity.net/downloads/We_Will_Not_Forget_2010.pdf</a>)<br>
<br>
With the Electoral Council banning candidates from <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i>,
we are presented with an election, in the name of “democracy,” where the
most popular party in the country is prevented from participating -
providing the illusion of electoral "democracy" as a front for
a military occupation, whose goal is to repress the forces calling for
the democratic sharing of power and wealth in the first place – the
precise definition of a “demonstration election.”<br><br>
After the United States conquered Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines
in 1898, the powers that be decided to create an “informal empire” as a
means of control, rather than the kind of direct colonial occupation that
the European powers had used in their conquests of Africa, Asia, and the
Middle East. The U.S. would use elections during an occupation to
legitimate its preferred candidate, then use economics and other means of
coercion to maintain a loosely knit system of neo-colonial dependency. In
Demonstration Elections Herman and Brodhead explain the template that has
been developed for these sham elections, analyzing the elections in the
Dominican Republic in 1966, Viet Nam in 1967, and El Salvador in 1982. We
can see this template at work for recent elections in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Honduras, and now Haiti, where the boycotted senatorial elections of 2009
and the upcoming presidential elections fit this pattern
perfectly.<br><br>
A demonstration election is a media event above all else. The media sell
the election to taxpayers at home to show "progress" and
justify spending the money for the occupation. They feature the election
as BIG NEWS, when it’s really propaganda, a smokescreen for the harsh
realities on the ground. That is why the candidacy of Wyclef Jean is so
important – it makes this Haitian election a media “event” and gives it
the illusion of credibility, when it’s real goal is to suppress the
<i>Lavalas </i>movement, put a democratic front on a brutal military
occupation, install a friendly face who will obey the will of the
“international community” investor class, and continue the neo-liberal
economic direction of the current Haitian government, all the while
presenting the face of "democracy" to the outside
world.<br><br>
So now we have 19, possibly 20, candidates lined up, most of them with a
tiny or no constituency, and all willing to play ball with the forces of
occupation, while <i>Lavalas</i> supporters demonstrate to denounce the
elections as a fraud, and UN troops shoot up the neighborhoods where they
live. But the media will never report on this. They have “on-agenda”
items – basically anything about Wyclef, and “off-agenda” items –
basically everything else, but especially any analysis of the background,
context and Real Purpose of the election, and in the case of Haiti, that
the<i> Lavalas</i> movement even exists. But it does. Stay
tuned.<br><br>
<br>
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