Haiti in 2005

Haiti in 2005

Area: 27,700 sq km (10,695 sq mi)
Population (2005 est.): 8,528,000
Capital: Port-au-Prince
Chief of state and government: President Boniface Alexandre (provisional), assisted by Prime Minister Gérard Latortue (interim)

Throughout 2005 reverberations from the tumult surrounding the departure in 2004 of Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide continued to dominate Haiti’s political, economic, and social developments, as well as its international relations. Polarization, tension, and conflict between the ousted president’s supporters and detractors resulted in hundreds of deaths, politically related detentions, and international accusations of interim-government human rights violations. Haiti’s dysfunctional judiciary and violence-prone police contributed to criminal impunity and unrest. Instability and eroded confidence in the government slowed disbursements of the $1.08 billion in development assistance pledged in 2004 by international donors. Remittances from overseas Haitians, however, increased to more than $1 billion, which enabled the foundering country to stay afloat.

The interim government moved toward fulfilling its principal mandate of shepherding presidential, legislative, and municipal/local elections by year’s end, with the inauguration of an elected president on Feb. 7, 2006. Most Haitians and international observers viewed elections as a prerequisite for addressing Haiti’s myriad problems. With security and technical support provided by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and the Organization of American States, respectively, election mechanisms were established; a voter-registration drive ultimately enrolled more than three million voters, some 75% of those eligible.

By year’s end, however, elections had not been held. Contributing to their postponement was a nationwide atmosphere of crime and insecurity, particularly in Port-au-Prince where politically linked gangs reigned with virtual impunity in the city’s massive slums and where hundreds of kidnappings fueled an environment of fear. After the midyear extension of MINUSTAH’s mandate to February 2006 and its augmentation to 7,500 military personnel and 1,897 civilian police, however, the Brazilian-led mission effectively quelled the violence fueled by inner-city gangs, rogue elements within the Haitian National Police, and members of the disbanded Haitian army.

The apparent inability of Haitian authorities to organize and deliver a credible electoral exercise, however, pushed the ballot into 2006. By year’s end former president René Préval (1996–2001) had emerged as the leading presidential candidate in a field of 35 that included veteran politician Marc Bazin as the standard-bearer of Aristide’s Lavalas Family (FL) and several noteworthy newcomers, including former insurrectionist Guy Philippe and businessman Charles Baker, leader of an anti-Aristide civil society group. Preval, eschewing his affiliation with the FL to accept the nomination of a coalition of several minor political parties and a national peasant organization appeared to be attracting significant support among Haiti’s demographically dominant rural and urban poor, formerly attracted to the FL.