Campaigning for Haiti’s presidential runoff election kicked off Friday, but it appears there is only one candidate who will actively participate. Government-backed contender Jovenel Moise, a little-known agricultural entrepreneur who led a crowded field of 54 candidates with nearly 33 percent of the vote in the Oct. 25 first round, planned his first rally late Friday afternoon. But the campaign team of the second-place finisher, Jude Celestin, has said he will take part in the Jan. 24 runoff only if sweeping changes recently recommended by a special commission are adopted to improve Haiti’s much-criticized electoral machinery. Celestin told The Miami Herald on Thursday that outgoing President Michel Martelly “will have to do an election with just one candidate.” His phone consistently goes unanswered and his campaign team did not respond to calls Friday. While the Provisional Electoral Council has pledged to improve transparency for the final round, special commission spokesman Rosny Desroches has said he has seen very little progress to improve the process and ease tensions since the panel’s recommendations were released last weekend.
Unless Celestin officially withdraws from the race his name will appear on the runoff ballot whether he chooses to campaign or not, Provisional Electoral Council spokesman Roudy Stanley Penn said. “Until he sends us a letter saying he is withdrawing he will be on the ballots for the final round and people can choose to vote for him,” Penn said Friday.
The U.N., the U.S. government and other foreign governments that monitor Haiti strongly support holding the final round of elections this month so a transfer of power to a new president can take place by a Feb. 7 constitutional deadline. The Organization of American States said Thursday that the scheduling of the runoff for Jan. 24 was a “step in the right direction.”
But a mood of confusion was palpable in the capital of Port-au-Prince as campaigning opened for the postponed presidential and legislative runoffs. That only one presidential candidate planned to campaign left many perplexed and they expressed doubt the elections could reasonably take place under such circumstances.
Full Article: In Haiti, only 1 presidential candidate campaigning – The Washington Post.
