US embassy cable - 05PORTAUPRINCE1537

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PORT AU PRINCE 001537 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, KDEM, KPAO, HA, Elections 
SUBJECT: Haiti elections update - June 2 
 
Ref:  State 101620 
 
1. (U) Summary:  Voter registration continues to lag, but 
MINUSTAH and OAS are making a big push to get a 
significantly increased number of registration centers up 
and running within the next 7-10 days, and believe they are 
still on track for a successful registration program.  The 
CEP's website is functioning and the OAS will begin informal 
email updates on registration numbers in the coming days. 
The CEP is hoping to finalize a slightly revised elections 
calendar (extending the registration period by 9 days); the 
IGOH will need to publish it as a decree, along with the 
decree needed to formalize the voter registration card as a 
national identity card.  A publicity campaign in support of 
registration has finally been launched, and USAID and PD are 
supporting it with their programming.  Political parties 
continue to prepare for elections, with one new Presidential 
candidate announced.  End summary. 
 
2. (U) For the first time in several weeks, the donor group 
on elections met with nearly the entire CEP May 31 and 
received updates on several key elections issues. 
PolCounselor and USAID elections coordinator met 
subsequently with MINUSTAH and OAS elections officials June 
1.  Updates on several key issues including from those 
discussions follow below, as well as on a few elections- 
related events. 
 
Registration process 
-------------------- 
3. (U)  This remains a source of great concern to us, and 
took up much of the three-hour donors meeting.  As of June 
1, only 17 registration sites (of 424 planned) have been 
opened, and slightly over 80,000 voters have been registered 
nationally.  Where centers are open, the registration 
process has gone smoothly and by all accounts voters are 
showing significant interest in registering.  The problem is 
the serious shortage of open registration centers.  OAS 
elections chief Spehar and MINUSTAH elections chief 
LeChevallier outlined a series of steps to be taken in the 
coming days to address this.  First, OAS has already 
increased the capacity of the open sites to accelerate 
registration there, and has begun sending out close to 
thirty mobile registration teams in different parts of the 
country.  More importantly, they are working to get more 
centers open, focusing on both privately owned buildings, 
churches, schools, and public facilities. 
 
4.  (SBU) LeChevallier told us that the CEP has within the 
last week finalized contracts with private property owners 
for approximately 100 new sites around the country.  UNOPS 
has been working to refurbish them (several are finished 
already) and within the next 7-10 days the sites will be 
turned over to OAS, which will install the necessary 
equipment and personnel and begin operations.  Separately, 
MINUSTAH has been pressuring the Prime Minister to put at 
the CEP's disposal more government facilities, e.g. mayor's 
offices, to use as registration sites.  LeChevallier told us 
June 1 that he was confident that at least half of the 
planned 424 registration centers would be up and running by 
June 15, and the remaining sites by June 30. 
 
5. (U) Spehar noted that registration capacity would 
increase gradually over the month of June, and thought that 
they could reach 250,000-300,000 by the end of the month. At 
maximum capacity, which the OAS/CEP would reach once all the 
centers are open, they can register 60,000-70,000 persons 
per day.  Even if this maximum capacity were not reached 
until July 1, this would still leave 40 days (until August 
9, the revised date for closing registration - see below), 
meaning they could realistically reach 3 million registered 
voters out of the 4.4 million estimated.  This was still 
less than desirable, but both she and LeChevallier firmly 
stated that this was a reasonable target. 
 
6. (SBU) Comment:  The UN, OAS, and CEP appear to finally be 
seized with the needed urgency and are focusing intently on 
getting registration sites open.  This has been helped by 
the pressure brought to bear by the international community 
since mid-May and by the Prime Minister's recent engagement 
with the CEP (he has had several meetings with the CEP, 
MINUSTAH, and OAS together).  We remain concerned that even 
a best-case scenario (rare here) leaves us well short of 
full registration.  At the moment, many CEP members, as well 
as LeChevallier and Spehar, are looking carefully at the 
possibility of moving back the local elections date by a 
week or two in order to accommodate a longer registration 
period.  This would require a revision to the electoral law, 
however. 
Information flow 
---------------- 
7.  (U) PolCounselor asked Spehar for more frequent 
information updates on the number of voters registered, 
centers opened, etc., noting the intense interest in 
Washington in remaining as up to date as possible on the 
overall elections process.  Spehar said the OAS was 
consciously letting the CEP itself be out in front on 
information dissemination, as part of the effort to make the 
CEP the principal entity responsible for the elections.  She 
said the CEP website (http://www.cep-ht.org/statistic.html) 
is being updated weekly (usually on Fridays) with 
registration statistics, but agreed to provide more frequent 
information updates to Embassy personnel and other 
interested persons, including in Washington.  (Note: The 
CEP's website includes a section on registration, with 
information on number of registered voters and breakdowns by 
department, age, and other factors.  We will provide Spehar 
with email addresses of members of the sub-PCC on Democracy 
to enable Washington readers to receive unofficial twice- 
weekly updates.  Those should start early next week. 
 
Elections calendar 
--------------------- 
 
8. (U) CEP member Duchemin told donors that the CEP intended 
to finalize an electoral calendar by Friday June 3 which 
would be submitted to the government for publication as a 
decree.  Although he (and other CEP members) frankly 
acknowledged it would be a challenge to hold to the original 
timetable, he stressed that no decisions had been taken to 
change the calendar.  For the CEP, the most important date 
was the installation of a new President by February 7, 2006. 
Currently, the CEP was considering the following calendar: 
 
Aug 9 - registration ends (an extension of the original plan 
to end July 31).  Candidate registration officially opens. 
 
Aug 16 - finalize voter lists, both global and by electoral 
district. 
 
Aug 26 --  Candidate registration closes. 
 
Sep 9 --  Period for appealing and resolving candidate 
registration disputes ends. 
 
Sep 12 - final candidate lists published and sent to ballot 
printing.  Campaign begins. 
 
Oct 9 - local elections held. 
 
Nov 13 - first round of parliamentary and presidential 
elections held. 
 
Dec 18 --  second round of parliamentary and presidential 
elections held. 
 
Civic education 
--------------- 
 
9. (U) The public information campaign in support of 
registration finally began in earnest May 22.  We have been 
hearing frequent radio spots over the last ten days, urging 
Haitians to register.  The campaign is being directed by the 
Haitian PR consortium MEDIACOM-CHP-PROCOM, which won a 
contract overseen by MINUSTAH in mid-May.  The contract 
calls for a total of nearly 15,000 radio spots per month, 
distributed among approximately 100 public and private radio 
stations in the capital and in several provincial capital. 
Absent from the MINUSTAH briefing on this was any 
description of the content of the spots, but from what we 
have heard they are straightforward exhortations to 
register.  A separate element of the campaign is the 
diffusion of small, well-produced Creole-language brochures 
outlining the advantages for citizens of having a voter 
registration/national identify card and showing how the 
registration process works. 
 
10. (U) Note:  USAID and PD are coordinating with MINUSTAH 
and the CEP to implement a public communications strategy in 
support of the electoral process, drawing on FY 05 ESF and 
PD funds. 
 
Budget 
------ 
11. (U) LeChevallier distributed an up-to-date budget 
document showing expenditures to date and confirming the 
anticipated budget shortfall of $22,456,156.  (Budget 
document has been forwarded to WHA/CAR.)  PolCounselor took 
advantage of the opportunity to announce to other donors and 
the CEP that the U.S. had decided to contribute an 
additional $8 million to help cover the shortfall.  $2.8 
million of that was immediately available and would be 
provided directly to the OAS to help cover the registration 
portion of the shortage; the remaining $5.2 million would 
come available later in the summer and would be provided to 
the UNDP-managed elections fund.  PolCounselor also noted we 
would make an appeal to other donors in capitals to help 
fill the gap (reftel). 
 
Legal framework still lacking 
----------------------------- 
12. (SBU)  The IGOH still needs to issue two decrees of 
critical importance to the process.  The first is the 
official electoral timetable, a proposal for which as noted 
above the CEP has said it will submit by June 3.  The second 
is a decree establishing the voter registration card as an 
official identify card for the full range of state services 
and purposes.  Although there is widespread consensus in 
favor of this, and in fact the voter registration campaign 
is already touting the broader benefits to registering, 
technically the card has no legality until the IGOH adopts 
the decree.  LeChevallier complained June 1 that the draft 
decree, which was submitted by the CEP (ghostwritten by 
MINUSTAH) several weeks ago, has been held up in the Council 
of Ministers by Justice Minister Gousse, who has been 
insisting on what LeChevallier called "unhelpful changes." 
LeChevallier also noted he remains concerned about several 
problematic clauses in the basic electoral degree concerning 
the electoral dispute appeals process and other issues. 
 
International observers 
----------------------- 
13. (U) Donors briefly discussed and agreed to follow up at 
their next meeting the question of establishing a 
coordination mechanism for the many international observers 
likely to come for the elections themselves.  Informally, 
some of our colleagues have suggested that the EU might be 
appropriate to serve in a "lead nation" role as coordinator, 
especially since, given their involvement in organizing the 
elections, the UN and OAS would have an apparent conflict of 
interest.  The Canadian embassy distributed copies of the 
assessment mission for international observers conducted in 
April by David Lee and Andre Bouchard.  Lee and Bouchard 
suggest the possibility of creating an ad hoc international 
consortium to coordinate observers who would likely come 
from several donor and troop-contributing countries, 
CARICOM, the African Union, the EU, and the Organization of 
Francophonie. 
 
Women's group hosts political parties 
------------------------------------- 
14. (U) A local women's organization, Famn Yo La, hosted a 
three-day seminar for political parties May 30-June 1 in 
Port-au-Prince.  The seminar was funded by Post's public 
diplomacy section and the UN women's rights organ UNIFEM and 
was well attended by most major political parties in Port-au- 
Prince.  Leaders and other representatives from twenty-five 
parties, including among others KID, MODEREH, MIDH, Fanmi 
Lavalas, and FRN, presented their party's ideology and 
addressed the importance of women's participation in the 
political process. 
 
Another Presidential candidate 
------------------------------ 
15. (U) The conservative coalition Grand Front Centre Droit 
(Great Center-Right Front) held its national conference in 
Petit-Goave on May 29 and officially nominated party leader 
Hubert Deronceray as presidential candidate. Deronceray 
(sometimes spelled De Ronceray) is a strong supporter of re- 
establishing the Haitian army, and a vocal critic of 
Lavalas.