RNDDH report on the partial senatorial elections of 19 April 2009

One hundred and five candidates entered the race, ten of them independents, and seventy-nine were approved by the Conseil Electoral Provisoire; several of the approved had been publicly named over corruption or human rights violations. The network judges the council's own formation flawed, because sector representatives were chosen on a new model set by the President, and the electoral law the work of the council, the executive and parliament alone, since proposals from other sectors, including the holding of the indirect elections, were not taken up. Fanmi Lavalas was excluded from the race and called for a boycott. Between the candidate profiles, the conduct of sitting elected officials, that boycott and the security arrangements, turnout was very low.

The council is nonetheless credited with real effort: polling-station members largely turned out, many sleeping in the centres the night before in difficult conditions. Incidents on polling day led the council to annul the elections in the Centre department, where it held four candidates responsible for the violence. The recommendations are procedural and enforceable: post the voter lists in the communal and departmental offices thirty days before the poll as the law requires, update the general and partial rolls, secure every voting centre and publish the list, identify polling-station members clearly, bar sitting parliamentarians from campaigning for candidates, bar armed escorts in favour of a police officer assigned to each candidate, require candidates to notify the police twenty-four hours before a public meeting, and refer the candidates behind the Centre violence to their prosecutors.