Haitian Presidential Elections Tomorrow Morning--October 2015

 

Photo by John Carroll–September, 2015

Bright and early tomorrow morning the voting booths will open in Haiti. Fifty-four people are running for President. Haiti has presidential elections once every five years and tens of millions of dollars have been poured into these elections by the international community.

I talked to a Haitian friend of mine a few minutes ago. He is 26 years old and he told me that he would have to walk three hours in order to vote. (He also said that there will not be much public transportation in the morning.) He could take a vehicle provided by one of the candidates but he would be encouraged, of course, to vote for that candidate providing him the ride. So he has decided not to vote.

He also expects violence tomorrow–he seemed quite certain of it–and just does not want to risk it. (There was a 16% voter turnout of 5.8 million registered voters on August 9 for parliamentary elections.)

The voting stations have been closed in Cite Soleil due to all the “problems” in the recent past. So the folks in the slum will have to vote elsewhere if they can. Nothing is easy here.

As I post this I can hear drums and music and singing somewhere not far from here in Port-au-Prince. I hope my young Haitian friend is wrong about tomorrow.  I hope these are happy drums and that no lives are lost tomorrow (or tonight) as all Haitians deserve the right to vote in an organized and peaceful fashion.

 

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org