The presidential candidate backed by the Government of Haiti, Jude Celestin, will retire from the second round, said a senator, opening the way for a solution in the dangerous electoral dispute in the impoverished Caribbean nation. The dispute over the contested results of the chaotic presidential and legislative elections of November 28 had threatened to plunge Haiti back into political turmoil a year after a devastating earthquake and a deadly cholera epidemic that has so far left three 927 thousand deaths.
“The candidate of our party INIT, Jude Celestin, will retire from the race to provide a solution to the electoral crisis,” said Franky Exius Senator, member of the ruling collation INIT.
An expert mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) considered the vote and recommended deleting the second round Celestin, for the singer Michel Martelly. Thus, Martelly would face in the runoff against opposition Mirlande Manigat, who OAS experts confirmed as the winner of most votes in the first round last November.
OAS experts work on Tuesday with the Haitian electoral authorities in processing the claims of the November elections.
Also, the agency convened today in Washington an extraordinary meeting of its Permanent Council to “an update on the situation in Haiti and the Haitian Provisional Electoral Council said it expected the outcome of that meeting to impose the exact date of the second round election, although they estimate to be held on 20 March.
The electoral environment has been marked also by the return to this Caribbean island of former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
