Human rights and opposition leaders in Haiti are taking the secretary general of the Organization of American States to task, accusing him of overstepping his role and wrongly supporting an extension of President Jovenel Moise's presidential mandate.
Luis Almagro, who assumed his second term as head of the hemispheric body last week after heavy lobbying by him and the Trump administration, recently issued a statement declaring that Moise's term as Haiti's 58th president ends on Feb. 7, 2022.
The declaration, which urged Haiti's political forces to "find a cooperative framework in order to comply with the letter and the spirit of their constitutional order," immediately stirred already turbulent political waters and accusations of meddling.
Now, in an open letter, seven human rights organizations have decided to school Almagro on Haiti's constitution in hopes of settling the debate over whether Moise's presidency ends on Feb. 7, 2022 as Almagro states, or on Feb. 7, 2021, as others contend.
The issue has long been a bone of contention _ and political bargaining _ since Moise took office on Feb. 7, 2017 following a nearly two-year political crisis and presidential and legislative electoral process marred by violence, allegations of fraud and delay. The president and his supporters have always argued that he was voted in in a new election and therefore his five-year presidential term ends in 2022, five years since his Feb. 7, 2017 swearing in.
Moise "knows that his term ends on Feb. 7, 2021, and what he's trying to do is convince people otherwise," said Gedeon Jean, a lawyer and founder of the Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research, who signed the six-page letter and issued a separate 22-page legal analysis supporting the constitutional argument. "I am sure that (Almagro) didn't really understand the process; this is why in the letter we decided to spell it out."
Almagro's spokesman, Gonzalo Espariz, did not respond to a Miami Herald email seeking comment. Jean and opposition leader Edmonde Supplice Beauzile, whose Fusion Social Democrats political party is among five opposition groups that issued a separate document to the OAS, said the OAS representative in Haiti informed them their documents have been forwarded.
At the heart of the debate, which threatens to trigger an even deeper crisis amid the global COVID-19 pandemic currently ravaging Haiti, are several issues.
First, there is the controversial 2015-16 elections in which Moise's chief rival, Jude Celestin, accused the governing party of "massive fraud" in favor of Moise and later refused to participate in a presidential runoff. The decision led to an indefinite postponement of the vote amid a violent outbreak, and the departure of then President Michel Martelly without an elected successor.
A parliamentary vote and negotiated accord led to Sen. Jocelerme Privert assuming the role as interim president in February 2016 to complete the electoral process.
Second, there is the interpretation of Article 134.1 and Article 134.2 in the country's amended 1987 constitution governing a president's term in office, and the ongoing debate over whether the November 2016 election that eventually brought Moise to power was a new election or continuation of a process.
"The election was a new election. Jovenel Moise's was elected in the first round," said Haiti Foreign Minister Claude Joseph. "In principle, Privert was supposed to organize the elections in 190 days, but he did not do that. So we were out of the constitutional order with Privert and when he decided to organize the elections it was a totally new election with a new electoral council, a new electoral decree ... so therefore Article 134.1 or 2 that the opposition is using is not applicable."
"Everyone knows in Haiti a presidential term is five years, and now they are talking about four years," Joseph added. "These are the same people who never wanted President Jovenel to be in power."
Jean and the signatories to the letter, as well as opposition leaders who have been demanding Moise's ouster since he assumed office, argue that the election was a continuation. As proof they cite a March 2016 publication of the country's official register, the Monitor, declaring that the nine-member Provisional Electoral Council was installed under a Feb. 5, 2016, political agreement to "continue" the electoral process that began in 2015.
The letter also points out that the 2015 electoral decree, regulating the elections, set the the term of office of the elected president from 2015 to Feb. 7, 2021.
The letter also sates that while Article 134 of the Constitution says a presidential term is five years, section 2 includes amended language stating, "if the election cannot be held before February 7, the President-elect shall take office immediately after the validation of the election and his term of office shall be deemed to have begun on February 7 of the year of the election."
To bolster their argument they turn to Martelly, accusations of meddling.when he assumed office on May 14, 2011.
In his final speech before leaving office, Martelly said, "This 7 February 2016 ... my mandate is coming to an end. Indeed, according to Article 134 of the mother law, the presidential term of office is five years. This period begins and ends on February 7 of the fifth year of the term, regardless of the date of taking office."
Moise has not yet commented publicly about the letter. In the week before Almagro's statement, however, the opposition began issuing several statements on his term ending in 2021. Some believe the statement by Almagro, which was issued two days after he assumed office following a re-election vote that was supported by Haiti, was Moise's way of responding.
While commemorating Haitian Flag Day on May 18, Moise, who is currently ruling by decree after failing to hold legislative elections in 2017 and 2019, reminded Haitians on how long he had been in office. "After three years, three months and 11 days, I have learned, I understand, I have grown," he said in Creole.
Haiti's 1987 Constitution has always been plagued with problems since it was crafted at the end of the nearly 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship to usher in democracy. While critics say it needs to be rewritten due to its complications, others say it has never fully been applied because the country's volatile politics always invite violations and political deals that are out of line with the document.
Jean, who fears Moise's refusal to leave in February could lead to a resurgence of the violent protests that battered the country last year, said the current crisis is what late President Rene Preval was trying to avoid when he pushed in 2010 to amend the Constitution in order to harmonize the country's electoral and constitutional requirements.
Beauzile, a former senator and the head of Fusion, said the end of Moise's presidential term isn't a question of when his elections were held but what the Constitution says. His failure to hold legislative elections on time, she said, is the reason why he is ruling by decree after the terms of the entire Lower Chamber of Deputies and two-thirds of the 30-member Senate ended in January.
She also noted that on Jan. 13, when Moise declared in a tweet there was "a lapse of Parliament and we take note of this institutional vacuum caused by the departure from the Chamber of Deputies and two-thirds of the Senate," he set the stage for his present predicament.
Several senators and 27 deputies, she remarked, were dismissed without having served their full terms because Moise had applied the very same reading of the 2015 electoral law and Constitution that he's now trying to avoid for himself, she said.
At the time neither the OAS, United Nations nor the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince said anything, Supplice noted.
Supplice said she personally sent the opposition positions to every ambassador at the OAS. One of those ambassadors told the Herald that they were just as surprised as people in Haiti about Almagro's statement on the situation in Haiti because there had been no discussion with the OAS member states. The ambassador also pointed out that given that Haiti is currently the chair of the Permanent Council until the end of June, any debate is unlikely to happen.
So far there has bee no word from foreign donors, who prior to the pandemic had been pressuring Haiti to hold elections to renew Parliament. On Thursday, the European Union issued a statement expressing concerns for the Haitian people as they faced the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, which has already claimed at least 50 lives among 2,640 confirmed cases.
The EU renewed its "call for an inclusive political dialogue between all the living forces in the country in order to provide the conditions necessary for the organization of free, fair and democratic elections, within a renewed constitutional and legislative framework that meets the aspirations of the Haitian people."
