Rahul Mahajan on Haiti
<<< Aristide himself earlier offered new elections, but was never taken up on that for the obvious reason that he and Lavalas had overwhelming support.
In the original disputed elections in May of 2000, Lavalas won an overwhelming victory, including 18 of 19 Senate seats. The dispute was over the vote-counting method. Instead of requiring that the winning candidate get a majority of all votes cast, the electoral council counted only the votes cast for the top four candidates and required that the winner get a majority of those (in many countries, you don't need a majority of votes cast, you just need to get more votes than any other candidate). This affected the election of 7 Lavalas Senate candidates and one not from Lavalas.
After initial resistance, the Haitian government conceded the issue, the 7 Senators resigned, and runoff elections were held.
In the fall of 2000, Aristide was elected president with 91.69% of the vote. The main potential opposition boycotted the election, but no one has ever suggested that Aristide wouldn't have won overwhelmingly no matter what. This was the same year that George W. Bush stole the elections in the United States, which has somehow never generated international pressure on this country.
That's it. Very minor irregularities by a party which had and has the support of the overwhelming mass of the country.
Elections now would be a different matter -- Aristide forced out, well-armed U.S.-backed thugs projecting terror throughout the country, and heavy U.S. intervention in building and holding together the "opposition" parties. There is no way that elections could be fair; even if they could, Aristide has the right to finish his term. >>>
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