Presidential Runoff Canceled in Haiti

A looming presidential election in Haiti that had already been postponed once and faced deep public skepticism was put on hold indefinitely Friday as the country’s leaders sought to negotiate a resolution to what could soon become a constitutional crisis in the impoverished country.

The spokesman for Haiti’s electoral council says that a much-criticized presidential runoff election will be postponed for a second time.

President Michel Martelly is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election and has vowed to hand over to a successor on February 7.

A Friday afternoon press conference in which Martelly was expected to address the situation was abruptly canceled.

Since the first round of presidential elections in October, during which Celestin finished second in a field of 54 candidates to ruling party candidate, Jovenel Moise, Celestin has claimed that the government of President Michel Martelly is manipulating results in favor of its candidate. The vote was originally supposed to be held December 27.

Celestin has complained of fraud and electoral rigging, and was quoted as saying that the first round was “an electoral coup”, and that Sunday’s vote would have not been “an election, but a selection because there is only one candidate”.

Neither candidate had an immediate response to the decision by the electoral council. In a statement, Celestin’s “Group of Eight” opposition alliance welcomed the “fighting spirit of the Haitian people”.

The UN has maintained a peacekeeping operation, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), since 2004.

The move to cancel the election came after Opont reported attacks on the communal electoral bureau in Limbe as well as the private residence of an elections official in Pignon.

In Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince protesters took to the streets this week to call for postponement of the vote. With more than 4,500 troops and police deployed now deployed in Haiti, its mandate has evolved over the years from supporting a transitional government to embracing natural disaster recovery and facilitating the political process. Security guards fired into the air. Some flung rocks and burnt tires, others beat a man alleged to be a thief.

There has been growing concern that a flawed runoff would push Haiti to the edge of tumult, rolling back a decade of relative political stability and putting the brakes on foreign investment.