ESSAY: IN HAITI, ELECTION IS MORE LIKE A BOXING MATCH
(AOL News) - By Emily Troutman, Contributor
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Ladies and gentlemen, to your corners! It's the end of week one of Haiti's post-election madness. The final results aren't expected until Tuesday, but the 18 presidential candidates are still pounding the pavement and, through the airwaves, pounding each other.
It's a radio rumor mill, where accusations feel as real as facts, and facts themselves are in little attendance.
Round One is almost done. Candidates are waiting to hear if Sunday's elections will be upheld, or canceled, based on accusations of fraud. Twelve candidates came together to denounce the elections, but when the government rebuffed their claims, the leaders of the coalition backed out.
An annulment seems unlikely now, despite international concerns, so the fight will go on as the ballots are counted. The candidates in first and second place advance to Round Two in January.
In the center of our boxing ring is the referee, Haiti's provisional Electoral Council. Friday, the council held a news conference to urge calm while results of the election are being tabulated. Pierre Louis Opont, the director general of the council, said he took responsibility for the troubled process and promised to do better next time.
Hopefully, he'll see a next time. Highly political and highly controversial, the fight for the presidency is a match no one wants to judge. The nine members of this council, meant to be fair arbiters and representatives from across Haiti, are a mix of former politicos and unknowns.
For the next two months, the council will fight others and among themselves, between competing claims for recounts and with enormous pressure from the ruling party of President Rene Preval. The only major candidate at the Electoral Council news conference Friday was Jude Celestin, the president's pick. Preval feels omnipotent here. He's the neighborhood kid who invited everyone and doesn't miss a chance to remind us he's in charge.
Now for the major fighters, er, candidates.
In Corner No. 1: Mirlande Manigat, the impassive former first lady, who polls said was ahead in the race before voting took place on Sunday. At 70 years old, she is a steady, grandmother-like figure for Haitians desperate for calm. Her campaign is led by veteran politician Reynold Georges.
On Sunday, Manigat joined a raucous news conference held jointly by 12 candidates, calling for the cancellation of the elections. On Monday, she did an about face and said people should respect the vote. This week she is declining interviews, but in the streets, she's still the object of interrogation.
In the marketplace of ideas, Haiti's security guards and mango sellers are divided about whether she's a force for good or evil. Manigat has been pummeled with accusations, though little proof, of an alliance with Preval. And friends say she is the highly principled victim of a smear campaign.
Assistants help her glide, as much as walk, through crowds. But don't be deceived by the streaks of gray hair and the granny act. She'll float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. She pretended to be shocked this week, and the victim of a whirlwind, when she sat at the table of 12 to call for cancellations, then changed her mind.
Though she hasn't held public office herself, many believe she already has the calm and cunning necessary to coast, quietly, into the National Palace.
In Corner No. 2: The musician/politician, Michel Martelly, or "Sweet Micky." His campaign, like the man himself, couldn't seem to keep its mouth shut this week. Martelly is led by the political consultants at OstosSola, who take credit for putting Mexican President Felipe Calderon in power in 2006.
Not surprisingly, their candidate has been consistently in front of the crowds, framing himself as the candidate of the people. In the final weeks of campaigning, he raced ahead in the polls from almost nowhere to third place.
Like Manigat, Martelly backed off his statement that the election should be canceled and suggested that the public should respect the vote. Unlike Manigat, however, Martelly's campaign went into full force this past week and he held back-to-back interviews for hours at the Karibe Hotel.
He personally orchestrated the opposition meeting on Sunday, initially between himself and two other popular candidates, Jean Henry Ceant and Charles Baker. The meeting got away from him when Ceant invited everyone.
In the end, he used Sunday's event to his own advantage and staged a massive demonstration, with the intent, mostly, to threaten the electoral council into honesty and remind everyone, 18-year-olds love him.
Asked, in the event of fraud, whether he thought he could fight the electoral council without the other candidates by his side, "I'm not saying I'm powerful enough to do it alone," he said. "But believe me, I'm the one that asked them to come."
For better or worse, it's his openness, and his ability to mobilize the masses, that will be a one-two punch to reckon with.
In Corner No. 3: What's left of those opposed to the vote. Ceant and Baker lead this pack of presidential stragglers, who are aligned now not just in their opposition to the validity of the elections but also to the leading candidates.
The spat got ugly on Monday, when the remaining dozen held a news conference and Martelly declined to attend. In an interview with AOL News, Baker said he wasn't surprised, but he did feel manipulated.
"I trust, until I have reason not to trust," he said. He said Martelly was invited but refused to come.
Martelly confirmed that saying, "I heard my lawyer on the phone with Ceant, but I was headed out the door."
Manigat, too, made herself unavailable.
The other candidates gathered again on Thursday, to lead a march of solidarity, but saw crowds of hundreds instead of thousands.
So finally, from the revolution that seemed at hand Sunday night, the match is now a mishmash of candidates all with singular agendas.
Which suits one man just fine.
In Corner No. 4: Jude Celestin, a businessman with a powerful coach, President Preval.
Celestin's campaign likely outspent every candidate combined. There were airplanes coasting the clouds with his name across the sky, and posters of his mustached grin on every corner.
He did no interviews, though a few debates. He often held rallies that he did not bother to attend. He was linked, impossibly, to Preval, a president so unpopular that secret U.S. embassy cables, released by WikiLeaks this week, say his singular obsession has been "orchestrating" this election to ensure he's not sent into exile.
So guard your bets, as it seems Celestin may yet win. Because even if no one voted for him, the judges here, and not just the referees, are so far sitting quietly to the side, perhaps ignoring U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admonition Friday, according to Reuters, that irregularities in the election seem "more serious than initially thought."
The Organization of American States, which monitored the election, acknowledged that it was bad, but not bad enough to pay for twice. The election sites were plagued with trouble. Thousands simply could not find their names on voter registration lists. U.N. forces in Haiti reported that approximately 4 percent of polling stations were completely destroyed.
Ballot boxes were stuffed, monitors were sent away, some people got to vote twice, and others were -- imagine, in this atmosphere of love! -- bullied.
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