Awesome! He just couldn't help himself.. Hopefully, this is just the beginning moments of a huge show trial and seizure of all criminally obtained assets! Haitian authorities have taken Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier into custody. Just in time, too, to ratchet up the chaos and future violence that is engulfing Haiti's Presidential election..
Update: Information is still unclear, and, as of 2:28 Central, CNN says Duvalier is NOT in custody. Can you feel those old family-inflicted wounds reopening? Haiti's about to go Hot again..
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Thursday, December 9, 2010
That Was Quick, or File Under: Hatian Election Riots
Haiti protesters rampage against election results Excerpts -Italics:
Thousands of protesters rampaged through Haiti's capital and other cities on Wednesday, hurling stones and wrecking property in a wave of unrest against election results they say were rigged by the ruling government coalition.
At least two people were killed in the flaring violence, which appeared to dash international hopes that the U.N.-backed elections held on November 28 could create a stable new leadership for Haiti, an impoverished nation struggling to recover from a devastating January earthquake.
Port-au-Prince descended into chaos as supporters of popular musician and presidential candidate Michel Martelly, who failed to qualify for an election run-off in results announced by electoral authorities, set up burning barricades of timber, boulders and flaming tires across the city.
..
Haiti's outgoing President Rene Preval, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon all appealed for calm, urging election candidates with grievances to address them through the legal channels provided by the country's electoral laws. (This is funny, right?)
"Breaking everything, destroying everything is not going to solve the problem," Preval said in Port-au-Prince.
And:
Preliminary results from the turbulent November 28 elections announced late on Tuesday showed former first lady Mirlande Manigat and Preval's protege, Jude Celestin, going through to the January run-off, with Martelly narrowly in third place and so excluded
But these results flew in the face of voting returns previously cited by media and Haitian election observers that had shown Manigat and Martelly as the two run-off qualifiers, not government technocrat Celestin. Martelly had already accused Preval and Celestin of trying to rig the results.
The United States, through its embassy in Port-au-Prince, cast doubt on the CEP results late on Tuesday, saying it was concerned they were "inconsistent with" vote counts observed by "numerous domestic and international observers."
Why get mad when so many things in Haiti are flammable?
The protesters in Port-au-Prince set fire to the headquarters of Preval's ruling (Inite) coalition. Businesses and schools stayed closed and many fearful residents stayed home, off the rubble-strewn streets. There was no traffic apart from an occasional police or U.N. vehicle.
..
Plumes of black smoke rose above the sprawling, crowded city, which bears the scars of the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people in the Western Hemisphere's poorest state. Haiti is also battling a cholera epidemic.
..
The protests erupted in the Petionville, Delmas and Canape Vert districts of the capital, among other areas.
..
Local radio reported protests in the southern town of Les Cayes in which Martelly supporters burned down government buildings, including the tax and customs offices.
..
Enraged Martelly supporters tore down, or hurled stones at election posters of Celestin and also of Manigat.
..
"Hang Preval!" other protesters yelled.
So much for holding on to social order.. Again, the runoff election isn't scheduled until January 16th, so likely we'll more variations of this story..
Thousands of protesters rampaged through Haiti's capital and other cities on Wednesday, hurling stones and wrecking property in a wave of unrest against election results they say were rigged by the ruling government coalition.
At least two people were killed in the flaring violence, which appeared to dash international hopes that the U.N.-backed elections held on November 28 could create a stable new leadership for Haiti, an impoverished nation struggling to recover from a devastating January earthquake.
Port-au-Prince descended into chaos as supporters of popular musician and presidential candidate Michel Martelly, who failed to qualify for an election run-off in results announced by electoral authorities, set up burning barricades of timber, boulders and flaming tires across the city.
..
Haiti's outgoing President Rene Preval, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon all appealed for calm, urging election candidates with grievances to address them through the legal channels provided by the country's electoral laws. (This is funny, right?)
"Breaking everything, destroying everything is not going to solve the problem," Preval said in Port-au-Prince.
And:
Preliminary results from the turbulent November 28 elections announced late on Tuesday showed former first lady Mirlande Manigat and Preval's protege, Jude Celestin, going through to the January run-off, with Martelly narrowly in third place and so excluded
But these results flew in the face of voting returns previously cited by media and Haitian election observers that had shown Manigat and Martelly as the two run-off qualifiers, not government technocrat Celestin. Martelly had already accused Preval and Celestin of trying to rig the results.
The United States, through its embassy in Port-au-Prince, cast doubt on the CEP results late on Tuesday, saying it was concerned they were "inconsistent with" vote counts observed by "numerous domestic and international observers."
Why get mad when so many things in Haiti are flammable?
The protesters in Port-au-Prince set fire to the headquarters of Preval's ruling (Inite) coalition. Businesses and schools stayed closed and many fearful residents stayed home, off the rubble-strewn streets. There was no traffic apart from an occasional police or U.N. vehicle.
..
Plumes of black smoke rose above the sprawling, crowded city, which bears the scars of the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people in the Western Hemisphere's poorest state. Haiti is also battling a cholera epidemic.
..
The protests erupted in the Petionville, Delmas and Canape Vert districts of the capital, among other areas.
..
Local radio reported protests in the southern town of Les Cayes in which Martelly supporters burned down government buildings, including the tax and customs offices.
..
Enraged Martelly supporters tore down, or hurled stones at election posters of Celestin and also of Manigat.
..
"Hang Preval!" other protesters yelled.
So much for holding on to social order.. Again, the runoff election isn't scheduled until January 16th, so likely we'll more variations of this story..
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Meanwhile, Haiti's Election Fiasco Sucks, But, Considering The Year, This Isn't A Surprise..
Haiti presidential election goes to 2nd round Excerpts:
Government-backed candidate Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat will advance to a second-round runoff in Haiti's presidential election, officials announced Tuesday as furious protests led by supporters of the third-place contender broke out in the capital.
The results were immediately questioned and matters are far from settled in the race to lead a country wracked by a cholera epidemic and still recovering from a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.
Much of the concern centered around conflicts between the announced results and those reported recently by a local election monitoring group financed by the European Union — the National Observation Council — which said that Celestin, a protege of outgoing President Rene Preval, would be eliminated
"The Government of the United States is concerned by the Provisional Electoral Council's announcement of preliminary results ... that are inconsistent with the published results of the National Election Observation Council" as well as U.S. observers and vote counts monitored by domestic and international observers, the U.S. Embassy said in an e-mailed statement.
..
The Nov. 28 election was plagued by allegations of fraud. Thousands of voters were disenfranchised by confusion on the rolls and there were many reported incidents of ballot-stuffing, violence and intimidation confirmed by international observers.
Officials acknowledged the rolls were both "bloated" and "incomplete," with hundreds of thousands of earthquake dead still registered and many living voters waiting for ID cards. In the last days of counting, tabulators had to sort out clearly fraudulent tally sheets.
..
After results were released Tuesday night, flaming barricades were set up near the Petionville restaurant where the tallies were announced. Martelly supporters threw rocks at people passing nearby and gunshots rang out. An Associated Press journalist was robbed.
"If they don't give us Martelly and Manigat (in the second round), Haiti will be on fire," said a protester, Erick Jean. "We're still living under tents and Celestin wastes money on election posters."
In the last eleven months, Haiti has dealt with the fifth deadliest quake in recorded history, almost total devastation of the major metropolitan area and capital's infrastructure, glacial debris removal, two million instantly-homeless people, a burgeoning, unfortunate cholera epidemic, and now, election fraud with not only the threat of turning the entire country into a riot zone, but effectively paralyzing any significant progress until an acceptable answer is reached. I can't imagine the level of rage on the streets of Port Au Prince that is now the New Normal..
If you ever needed evidence of the existence of the Multiverse, Haiti is it. Mind you, there are "distorted energies" at work planet-wide, but wow.. There's just so much.. Dissonance.. Working together In Terrible Concert, inhabiting such a small physical area.. There has always, always been a higher level of malevolent energies than in other countries, but now, that level of pain must be almost absolutely unbearable.
What can life be like, moment to moment? All that sadness, rage, helplessness, all around, all the time, from the constant, to the new and surprising disappointments that present themselves daily. It's amazing the situation hasn't devolved any further than it has. Each person has a breaking point. So do entire populations. I salute the people of Haiti for not descending into total anarchy, and honor their tremendous internal fortitude for not doing so.. But with election results over a month away, though, I wonder if this event will end up being The Final Straw..
Government-backed candidate Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat will advance to a second-round runoff in Haiti's presidential election, officials announced Tuesday as furious protests led by supporters of the third-place contender broke out in the capital.
The results were immediately questioned and matters are far from settled in the race to lead a country wracked by a cholera epidemic and still recovering from a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.
Much of the concern centered around conflicts between the announced results and those reported recently by a local election monitoring group financed by the European Union — the National Observation Council — which said that Celestin, a protege of outgoing President Rene Preval, would be eliminated
"The Government of the United States is concerned by the Provisional Electoral Council's announcement of preliminary results ... that are inconsistent with the published results of the National Election Observation Council" as well as U.S. observers and vote counts monitored by domestic and international observers, the U.S. Embassy said in an e-mailed statement.
..
The Nov. 28 election was plagued by allegations of fraud. Thousands of voters were disenfranchised by confusion on the rolls and there were many reported incidents of ballot-stuffing, violence and intimidation confirmed by international observers.
Officials acknowledged the rolls were both "bloated" and "incomplete," with hundreds of thousands of earthquake dead still registered and many living voters waiting for ID cards. In the last days of counting, tabulators had to sort out clearly fraudulent tally sheets.
..
After results were released Tuesday night, flaming barricades were set up near the Petionville restaurant where the tallies were announced. Martelly supporters threw rocks at people passing nearby and gunshots rang out. An Associated Press journalist was robbed.
"If they don't give us Martelly and Manigat (in the second round), Haiti will be on fire," said a protester, Erick Jean. "We're still living under tents and Celestin wastes money on election posters."
In the last eleven months, Haiti has dealt with the fifth deadliest quake in recorded history, almost total devastation of the major metropolitan area and capital's infrastructure, glacial debris removal, two million instantly-homeless people, a burgeoning, unfortunate cholera epidemic, and now, election fraud with not only the threat of turning the entire country into a riot zone, but effectively paralyzing any significant progress until an acceptable answer is reached. I can't imagine the level of rage on the streets of Port Au Prince that is now the New Normal..
If you ever needed evidence of the existence of the Multiverse, Haiti is it. Mind you, there are "distorted energies" at work planet-wide, but wow.. There's just so much.. Dissonance.. Working together In Terrible Concert, inhabiting such a small physical area.. There has always, always been a higher level of malevolent energies than in other countries, but now, that level of pain must be almost absolutely unbearable.
What can life be like, moment to moment? All that sadness, rage, helplessness, all around, all the time, from the constant, to the new and surprising disappointments that present themselves daily. It's amazing the situation hasn't devolved any further than it has. Each person has a breaking point. So do entire populations. I salute the people of Haiti for not descending into total anarchy, and honor their tremendous internal fortitude for not doing so.. But with election results over a month away, though, I wonder if this event will end up being The Final Straw..
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Ireland's Ruling Government Is About To Have Their Ass Handed To Them
Come January, it's payback. The Irish are mad, and ready to kick some Fianna Fail ass. The other traditional opposition parties(Fine Gael, in first, at the moment, Labour in second and Sinn Fein, third) are crushing Fianna Fail(by default) which has dropped to last place in the "major" parties (not counting the Greens), and elections are slated for the second week of January. In a quirk of Irish politics, Fine Gael is to the right of Fianna Fail, but works with Labour, which is similar in spirit to the progressive left of the American Democratic Party. (It would be nice to have that cooperation stateside, but, you know..)
Fianna Fail has seen their popularity plummet from 42 percent to 13 percent, and are projected to lose as many as 55 seats in this disaster election scenario created by their greed and unshakable allegiance to the banks that got them in trouble in the first place. And now, members of its own party might not follow suit for December 7th's budget vote. And if the budget doesn't pass and Ireland refuses the bailout and the entire government collapses, this will cause a whole new set of problems for the EU, the IMF, and bankers from other countries. Stay tuned..
Fianna Fail has seen their popularity plummet from 42 percent to 13 percent, and are projected to lose as many as 55 seats in this disaster election scenario created by their greed and unshakable allegiance to the banks that got them in trouble in the first place. And now, members of its own party might not follow suit for December 7th's budget vote. And if the budget doesn't pass and Ireland refuses the bailout and the entire government collapses, this will cause a whole new set of problems for the EU, the IMF, and bankers from other countries. Stay tuned..
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