Elections a fraud, say Haiti’s bishops

Press, 25 January 1988, Page 6

Elections a fraud, say Haiti’s bishops

NZPA-Reuter Port-au-Prince Haiti’s Roman Catholic bishops labelled the country’s military junta a dictatorship on Saturday and denounced last, week’s controversial elections as a fraud. Haiti’s militaryappointed electoral commission said it would announce results of the widely-criticised elections today. The commission has produced the results of only 20,000 votes to date.

Bishop Gayot, chairman of Haiti’s Bishops’ Conference, told some 2000 worshippers in Port-au-Prince that Church leaders would not remain silent about

the elections “which went far beyond anything tolerable.”

“The Churches have witnessed what went on. They cannot remain silent in such a situation of despair,” Bishop Gayot said in an emotional speech interrupted repeatedly by applause.

“It is the future of the nation and of the people of this country which is threatened. The people have already said no (to the polls), and said they do not want this dictatorship,” he said. Later, a spokesman for the Protestant Church read a statement saying all Christian Churches were prepared to mediate

between the country’s opposing factions in an effort to foster democratic reforms.

A majority of Presidential candidates and foreign observers called the election a heavyhanded farce with vote rigging carried out in the open.

They also said it appeared that only a tiny minority of Haiti’s 2.3 million registered voters took part in the poll, which the country’s leading politicians had boycotted.

The commission, however, said that within hours of polling stations closing, some two million people had cast votes.