Church and Western Countries Denounce Electoral Fraud
Zenit, July 21, 2000 - Daily Dispatch - The World Seen From Rom.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, JULY 21 (ZENIT.org).- One of Haiti's 9 Catholic bishops has accused the government of adopting the "Cuban model" to impose a totalitarian State in the country.
Last week, the European Union, the United States, and Canada, Haiti's principal sources of aid, threatened to withdraw their assistance if new elections were not called for 10 senatorial seats that, according to the bishops, were ceded illegally to the party of former President Jean Bertrand
Aristide, "Familia Lavalas," which controls the Senate.
Bishop Guar Poulard, vice-president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference, said he was saddened "because the Haitian government refuses to be open to dialogue with important sectors, both national and international, that have criticized the elections."
"The present government of Haiti is attempting to adopt the Cuban totalitarian regime as a model," Bishop Poulard said in Jacmel, his episcopal see. That city is also an Aristide stronghold in the southwest of the country.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis reiterated his determination to go ahead despite the objections. "Haiti is a sovereign country," he said to the mayors elected in the electoral process considered fraudulent. "We will go forward " no matter what happens.
The results of the July 9 legislative elections have yet to be officially announced. However, everything seems to indicate that Aristide won control of the legislature, and that the majority of urban and rural councils are prepared to give him decisive influence in the coming years.
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