I have posted on the recent Haitian election previously, but those posts can, in effect, be disregarded, so much has the situation changed.

Elections were held for the presidency, the whole of the Chamber of Deputies and a part of the Senate. The election was held on the basis of a two-round system.

As reported previously, the preliminary results from the Electoral Commission for the presidential election presented the following figures for the top three candidates:

Mirlande Manigat
(Rassemblement des Démocrates Nationaux Progressistes, RDNP)

Jude Célestin
(Lespwa/INITE)

Michel Martelly
(Repons Peyisan)

However, the result was highly contested. Crucially, an official report on the election by the Organisation of American States presented different figures, crucially reversing the order of the second and third candidates:

Mirlande Manigat (RDNP), 31.6%
Michel Martelly (Repons Peyisan), 22.2%
Jude Célestin (Lespwa/INITE), 21.9%

The ‘definitive’ results of the Haitian Electoral Commission were presented on 3 February and they effectively endorsed the new result, though not all members of the Commission agreed to sign off the new results.

As far as I understand it, President Préval came under pressure, notably from the US, to relinquish support for M. Célestin, who was representing the president’s own party. The US reportedly threatened to remove aid from the country, leaving both the president and then M. Célestin with little option but to withdraw, thus allowing the Commission to announce ‘definitive’ results.

It now seems as if the reconstituted second round of the election will take place on 20 March.

In the meantime, there is also a little more information about the legislative election. The IPU is reporting that 18 seats for the Chamber of Deputies were won at the first ballot. Lespwa/INITE won 10 of these seats. The other 80 seats will be filled at the second ballot.

For the Senate, the IPU reports that only two of the 11 seats were filled.