Haiti panel calls for re-run of presidential elections

By Michelle Nurse On May 31, 2016

Interim President Jocelerme Privert, left, receives the election report from the president of the verification commission Francois Benoit, at the national palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, May 30, 2016. (Photo via Dieu Nalio Chery AP) — Interim President Jocelerme Privert, left, receives the election report from the president of the verification commission Francois Benoit, at the national palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, May 30, 2016. **(Photo via Dieu Nalio Chery AP)**

The results of Haiti’s contested first-round presidential elections were such a disaster that the process should recommence at zero, the head of a five-member panel charged with reviewing the vote told the nation Monday.

Francois Benoit made the recommendation during a ceremony at the National Palace in which he handed over a 105-page report, the results of a month-long audit by the Independent Commission of Evaluation and Verification, to interim President Jocelerme Privert. Privert, in turn, gave the report to the revamped Provisional Electoral Council, which will ultimately decide whether to accept the recommendation. It had planned to announce a new elections calendar on Tuesday.

The commission audited 25 percent of the results, or 3,325 tally sheets from 13,000 polling stations across the country.

“The conclusion we have reached is that the evil started not only within the polling stations, but a little higher in the distribution of [accreditation cards]” Benoit said, referring to the tens of thousands of cards that were distributed to poll workers and electoral observers and went for as little as $3 on election day. The cards allowed individuals known as mandataires to vote multiple times and at any polling station. The card, he said, “frantically opened the way for … trading.”