President Préval Seeks an Electoral Amendment

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"Préval calls for a constitutional amendment which would permit a president to serve for two consecutive terms, instead of non-consecutively, as currently required under the country's constitution.

In effect, at present there must be at least five years between each non-consecutive term. Préval's proposition to amend Haiti's constitution is potentially dangerous, depending upon the intent of those leaders who will be coming after him, since he is not scheduled to benefit at all from the new arrangement.

Even if the consecutive term limit is not increased, an opportunistic leader could try again to use the change in procedures to his or her personal benefit.

Préval has declared himself ineligible to benefit from this provision, but with international assistance in the form of economic aid, loans, and a likely restructuring of Haiti's policing system, the possibility of a dangerously integrated central government increases, given Haiti's riotous history.

The Associated Press ran an article entitled "Haiti's Préval Seeks to Amend Term Limit," which stressed that "Préval urged lawmakers to work with him to overhaul the document, which he [Préval] called the single greatest threat to Haiti's long-term stability." Though Préval's statement is accurate in that new reforms may not have the opportunity to come to fruition before an opposition leader will try to block the measure, the opposite may be equally true. "Long-term stability" is not always synonymous with "assurance of safety for citizens individually." In his "Political and Economic History of Haiti," Thayer Watkins conjectures that some of the most stable governments throughout Haiti's history were also the deadliest for Haitian civilians.

These included the rule of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who presided over Haiti until 1971, after winning a 'free and fair' election in 1957. Approximately 30,000 Haitians were later killed under his rule for resisting his reign." sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/haiti.htm

St.laurent, April 7 2008, 3:39 PM

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They are so treacherous when it comes to power they would betray their own mother.Thanks for the post. " In 1796... read more >
Lazarus, 7-Apr-08 4:00 pm

 

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