 Good afternoon. I want to welcome you all to the United States Institute of Peace. My name is Bob Harito. I'm the director of the Haiti project here at USIP. The title of our event today is Elections in the Time of Cholera. It's an event with a co-sponsorship first by the Haiti Working Group and secondly by the USIP Working Group on Health and Peace Building. We're joined today by Professor Leonard Rubinstein who is from the John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and he is the director of the Health Working Group here at USIP. As our title is sort of an attempt to capture a sense of the drama that is taking place in Haiti today. It was by pure chance that we chose this day, the day that the election results were to be announced. We think, although we're not confirmed yet, that the election results will actually be announced tomorrow. This is my colleague, Leonard Rubinstein. You just missed your introduction. So from past experience, we all know that Haitian elections produce unpredictable results and this election has been no exception. On election day, the joint press conference held by 12 of the presidential candidates was the first indication of very serious problems with the voting and an indication that the results of the election would not go unchallenged. The subsequent change of position on the two front runners that first were part of the press conference and then stepped aside only added to the sense of drama. On the positive side, the low level of violence by the standard of previous Haitian elections was commendable, as was the fact that Haitians came out to vote in numbers despite the hardships of life following the earthquake. Also, the work by the Organization of American States, the United Nations, and other international organizations under very, very difficult and trying circumstances is to be commended. The elections took place against a background of crisis created by the cholera epidemic. Cholera continues to spread and to claim an increasing number of victims. The most recent count I have seen, and this may be updated by our colleague from Partners in Health, was 85,000 cases reported with 1900 deaths. Forecasts are that the number of cases will increase in the near term and claim an increasing number of victims and then hopefully begin to taper off. So what does the series of events of the last few days hold for the future? As always, we have a panel of very distinguished experts to answer these questions and others. I will now turn the program over to Bob McGuire, Professor Bob McGuire, who is the chairman of the USIP Haiti Working Group and Associate Professor of International Affairs at Washington Trinity University. Bob is the author of a new USIP Peace Brief, a publication that is out on the table. And I urge you to pick up a copy of this on your way out if you didn't get one on your way in. And so I will introduce Bob, and Bob will introduce the panel. Thank you, Bob. And good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming out on this very tropical Washington day. As you can see, we have one empty chair up here. Ambassador Ramdin is at a diplomatic function and will be on his way, so we will proceed without him. And when he gets here, he will join us for his comments. Bob mentioned a few things I was going to mention as well. I was just going to say that I think we owe some apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez with the title of this meeting. We were going to do elections and love in the time of cholera, but there hasn't been too much love demonstrated on the election front in Haiti thus far. I guess as a bit of a backdrop to this meeting, which obviously is bifurcated between elections and cholera, you know, there were supposed to be legislative elections in Haiti in the end of February of this year. Those elections were moved because of the earthquake and joined in with the presidential election that was running as scheduled. Initially there were 19 candidates for the presidential post. It boiled down kind of to a group of 12 on election day. We had a couple of breakaways from that group of 12, both with the last name of M, Martelli and Maniga. And now we're facing the specter of a runoff. Even this may not be as simple as it appears because there's much discussion now if the runoff will engage two or three candidates. There's also been some, obviously the reports of chaos and confusion, allegations of fraud, tension, and coming from Washington, a prominent U.S. senator who is warning that confusion in Haiti could have an impact on the release of funds for the reconstruction following the earthquake. On the other side of this equation, in October of this year on the 21st, in fact, there was the first case of cholera reported. It was in the Artibone area. It ultimately had spread to Port-au-Prince and now seems to have spread throughout the country to all 10 departments of Haiti. Paralleling with that, there has been some finger pointing as to where the cholera has come in. And as most of you know, this includes some discussion of whether it was introduced by some of the United Nations troops. The death toll, I guess, continues to grow by the day as does the number of cases infected. In a very disturbing report that I read last night online, it seems that there has been some vigilante justice in the southern part of the country against some people who are accused of importing the disease to that part of Haiti. To add insult to injury, of course, there was the glancing blow given to the country by Hurricane Tomah about a month ago. And then, of course, the overriding issue of Haiti's recovery from the earthquake. I think we have one quote from this peace brief that Bob Purito mentioned. It says, meeting even one of these enormous challenges would test any government. Meeting all of them will require extraordinary effort by Haitian officials and considerable assistance from the international community. So with this as a backdrop, we will have three speakers today to address topics around these issues. And first off is Ambassador Louis-Harold-Joseph. And for those of you who have been following Haiti's ambassadorial presence in Washington, this is not Ramon-Joseph. And they are not related. Ambassador Joseph is from Capay-Cien, and his parents were teachers there. He has a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Haiti. And he has a degree from CICE here in Washington, D.C., a master's of international public policy. I recall having many fund exchanges with Ambassador Joseph when he was here in Washington from 1982 to 1997. He was minister counselor at the embassy here in Washington. Ambassador Joseph will speak first. Donna Barry, who is no stranger to the USIP, having spoken here before, is currently the advocacy and policy director of Partners in Health in Haiti, where she began working in 2001. She has been to Haiti on many occasions, and she has participated in some very important briefings and hearings on Capitol Hill regarding reproductive health, debt relief in Haiti, childhood malnutrition, tuberculosis and funding for global health. So we're pleased to have both Ambassador Joseph and Donna with us. And when Ambassador Ramden is able to join us, we will hear from him as well. And Ambassador Ramden, of course, is the Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of American States. We'll begin with Ambassador Joseph. Dr. Marguerite, thank you very much. First of all, I would like to say thank you to United States, United Institute of Peace for inviting me to speak about Haiti. But when you listen to the title, Haiti Election in the Time of Corera, you will understand it is a little bit very difficult for a Haitian diplomat to talk about election when you are waiting for the result. But anyway, in my capacity here as Ambassador, as a diplomat, I'm sure I'll find a way to say a few words that will allow us to discuss about the situation in Haiti. For about 25 years, Haiti has been faced at the same time with multiple crises, environmental, energy, food, political and socio-economic. This predicament is the result of certain bad policies adopted in the past and the endless democratic transition which virtually began in 1986 with the end of Jean-Claude Duvalier's government. For the past 25 years, we have certainly made progress in the political arena. Freedom of the press, the existence and functioning of political parties, the idea of democratic alternance are widely accepted in the country and included in the political agenda of the governments which have since succeeded each order. However, these achievements on the political front have had no repercussions from a socio-economic standpoint. The best economic years of Haiti for the past 25 years still remain the early 70s. Today's unemployment rate exceeds 60% and the majority of the population continue to live in abject poverty. Natural disasters have become customary with hurricanes in the annual hurricane season, not sparing our road and land infrastructure and our crops in the countryside. The food crisis is a corollary of the ecological crisis aggravated by negative side effects of market forces and business practices of the global world. The energy crisis in Haiti, particularly shortages of electricity, is a result of the country not having sufficiently invested in this sector and being a net importer which does not have the ability to generate the growth needed to diminish the impact from this sector. Now, saying this, I would like to now to speak a little bit about the earthquake in Haiti. If January 12th exposed the institutional and organizational weakness of the country, it also gave evidence to the resilience of the Haitian people, its ability to survive, but also the creativity which politicians can demonstrate to mitigate the adverse effect of a natural catastrophe. Nearly 11 months after January 12th, Haitians are still mourning their dead and the survivors are still struggling with the disastrous consequences on their lives. The toll was heavy, more than 200,000 kill, 500,000 rounded and paralyzed, more than 1 million people still living in tents. From the first week following the earthquake, we fear the risk of epidemic outbreaks, especially cholera. Given the precariousness of the country's health structure, and 8 months after January 12th, it was the hurricane season again and the country was preparing for the passage of one or more hurricanes inventoried by weather centers in the region, rather than for an epidemic. Thomas arrived on the shores of Haiti towards the end of the hurricane season. However, the cleaning of gullies in the year 2009 and other preventive measures taken by national risk and disaster management agency allowed the loss of human life to be significantly reduced. However, material damage to the agricultural sector and to the world infrastructure was considerable. As the head of state of Haiti said in 2009 from the washroom of the UN in New York, when he was referring to the virus natural disasters that took place worldwide it seems that some of us must include impact on recurring natural disasters in our lifestyle. Indeed, in the case of Haiti, we are constantly repairing damage caused by hurricanes and floods, while we are too often lacking in resources to start these repairs on time. Natural disasters happened regularly and supported them while they are being undertaken and at the same time causing new damage. It is under that backdrop that the cholera epidemic was officially confirmed on October 21st, 2010. The arrival of this epidemic brought fears of disaster as the effects of Hurricane Thomas were still fresh and the water sources in the country were more than likely very vulnerable to contamination considering the violent descent of rainwater. During the first week of the epidemic, 9% of patients hospitalized had died. The number of diagnosed cases continued to increase, but fewer cases of death have been recorded in hospitals. This reflects the positive impact of the action by health authorities. According to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Health, the percentage of death of hospitalized patients decreased from 9% to 3.5%. It is the combined result of certain measures, an increase of care centers, the systematic extension of routine hygiene education to the population, the availability and access to drug supply, including ORS and intravenous fruit, and emergency health measures which have helped limit the number of deaths. The eradication of cholera in Haiti still seems distant as experts predict that this will not happen for many years. I will be remiss not to use this forum on behalf of the Haitian government and people to pay tribute to the American government and people for the decisive action taken by agencies such as USAID and CDC in partnership with other friendly countries, regional organizations like POW, international organizations like WHO, and non-governmental organizations in support of the efforts of Haitian health authorities. Let's say a few words now about election. It is a constitutional requirement to ensure the balance of power between the political forces with a guarantee for representation by all trends. The election confer legitimacy to elected officials. The elections of November 28, 2010 are even more so important because the legislative election scheduled for February 2010 did not take place because of the earthquake on January 12. During the course of the next five years, billion of dollars will be spent in Haiti. Thus, it is essential for the new government to have the legitimacy and mandate of the Haitian people to run the country. The illegitimacy of a new government is a scenario that will make it difficult to reconstruct the country. A political crisis in the country is not an option. Strong political forces of the nation have matured, having learned the lesson of the past. The government of Haiti is committed to continuing the process leading to the handover of power to the winner of the election on February 7, 2011. The new government of Haiti should strive to work with the international community. The priorities would remain the collection of tons of debris generated by the earthquake. The construction of home to house the homeless. The fight against cholera. Food security. All this must be done on a background of institutional strengthening, decentralization, creation of poles of development and job creation to reduce chronic unemployment, which has been plaguing the country for several decades. The basis for partnership of the constitutional government of February 7, 2011. Women, of course, the United Nations Conference on Haiti in New York on March 31, 2010 and the financial commitment that were made there. As of February 7, 2011, the elected government must establish and organize a dynamic and competent team which will inspire confidence in the international community by adopting effective policies for implementation of project of reconstruction. The government must take leadership in the design and prioritization of development projects and always in an open and transparent manner. For each part, the international community should honor its commitment by making resources promise available as scheduled. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador, and thank you, Bob and Bob, and thank you very much for having me here today. I'm very honored to be on a panel with two ambassadors, and I'm wondering, actually, if I can be conferred as someone like that. But I just want to say thank you. I actually have tailored my remarks a little bit more towards water and sanitation and how we got to where we are today versus where we are today with cholera. So I've got some remarks in there about this, but if I'm more than happy during the discussion to answer more specific questions about cholera itself as well as the response. But let me, as I said, let me just give a little bit of historical context and content and then some commentary. So according to the post-disaster needs assessment, which was prepared for the March donors conference in response to the January 12th earthquake, in that document and before the earthquake, only 70% of urban residents and 51% of rural residents actually had access to potable or drinking water. I would argue that the figures are likely much lower than that, or were much lower than that, due to, one, the infrastructure issues with providing water in Haiti and the delay of many long-term projects which had been scheduled to be implemented in Haiti. And also, while populations may have had proximal access to clean sources of water, they certainly did not have real access to water because in many cases it was completely unaffordable and therefore it was inaccessible. And so I think the numbers, as I said, are much, much lower than that. Also from the PDNA, we know that actually after the 2008 hurricanes, over 250 water supply networks had been damaged and remained unrepaired as of January 12th, and I'm sure as of today. There was, across the board, poor water quality testing in the country, and there was definitely a lack of trained human resources in the country and especially in the public sector to manage and maintain water infrastructure and also incredibly poor rural network management, which, when we think about the country as a whole, will always consider that the rural areas have always been the most neglected. Now, access to sanitation facilities is far worse. As of January 12th, only 29% of populations in urban areas actually had access to sanitation facilities and 12% in the rural areas had access to decent sanitation facilities. So in the post-disaster needs assessment, there is a billion-dollar budget for water and sanitation needs. And the strategy that's laid out to spend that billion dollars, I think it's over the course of three years, would be to create regional structures that would be responsible for operating water facilities, managing urban water and sanitation systems, and then supporting their technical operations and implementation. It also mentions that there would be increasing private sector involvement in research, facility construction, and network management. I have a whole another talk on why private sector control and management of a public good like water is a bad idea. And there are numerous examples from around the world where this has actually been a complete failure. Most especially for the poor, but we don't have time to get into all of that today either, so I'm happy to answer more questions on that as well. The PDNA also purports to develop tools to improve the sector's technical and financial capacity, incorporate environmental risks into the sector's activities as the ambassador mentioned is very important. We keep running into them multiple times a year. And then also community education, raising awareness about hygiene practices, et cetera. For solid waste management, the PDNA proposed to develop a legal framework actually for solid waste management. Introduce a national financial framework for solid waste management. And to define short term solid waste management infrastructure and equipment needs for Haiti's major and smaller cities. Once again, rural areas actually were not mentioned in that strategy part of it, so also neglected unfortunately. So in the Haiti Action Plan, which was also prepared for the March Donut Conference, the objectives include, these are targets. So 60% of coverage for drinking water in metropolitan zones and 73% in other urban and rural areas. And sanitation coverage for 58% of the population in metropolitan zones, 50% in other urban areas as well as rural areas. So that's just a little bit of statistical, boring background for our conversation. But I think important actually to see what existed long before the things fell down on January 12th. Many of you may be familiar with the report that Partners in Health worked on with our partners, the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights and NYU Law School Center for Human Rights and Global Justice on the denial of the right to water in Haiti. For those of you who aren't, it's up on all of our websites, so it's easy access to it. But in that is a very thorough description of how the water systems are organized in Haiti from national to absolutely local distribution levels. And I'm not going to go into the details of those nor could I, but I think it's important background to have also when you're looking at the context. The 2008 report also documents the United States interference in delivering loans from the Inter-American Development Bank to Haiti for water and sanitation. To make a very, very, very long story short about the loans, we just found out thanks to our colleagues at RFK who've been tracking this more closely, that the water project that was set up in San Marc, the site of really the first hardest hit area of the cholera epidemic, just started to be coordinated after the cholera epidemic broke out. One of the most important prevention measures that could be taken to prevent something like this was implemented after the cholera epidemic broke out. And it's important to note, I mean these loans were approved in 1998, so we're just getting to a point of chlorinating water in one of the hardest hit areas. And in Port-au-Pay, a city that's now racked with cholera, the water infrastructure project that was funded by these loans is only protected to be finished in spring 2011. So 13 years after the loans for water and sanitation, $54 million worth of loans were approved. We still don't have project completion due to early interference by the United States, but then many, many bureaucratic problems since then to get these things implemented. Obviously, many of the plans for post-earthquake reconstruction have been put on hold due to the cholera epidemic and the response. And in addition, I think we really have to remember that less than 50% of the monetary resources promised for calendar year 2010 at the March Donors Conference have actually been dispersed. So clearly these lack of resources are also slowing the progress of any kind of reconstruction to be done post-earthquake. Now the overall health restructuring plans, which the health sector restructuring plans, which the MSPP or MOH have been working on with U.S. government entities as well as many other donor countries since 2009 have also been delayed. Not only because of the earthquake, but now because of the cholera crises and then in addition the lack of resources that are actually available to do the implementing. One of the major problems that I see and we see with improving water and sanitation in Haiti, really as with most aid to Haiti, is that the water and the sanitation projects have been pretty small scale. Village based and NGO led. So in many cases in the short term, this is really one of the only things that can be done to provide short term water access for populations. But one wonders if all the money that's been given to all these small scale projects had been actually used for developing large scale public infrastructure with training and salary support for public sector workers. If there actually might be better water and sanitation access in Haiti today, and we might have been able to avoid some of the problems that we're faced with today with the cholera epidemic. And if the small scale projects were at least intended to eventually be managed by a public system, that also would be a good start. And one hopes that maybe this will be taken into consideration from this point forward as we're looking at reconstruction issues. At Partners in Health, we continue to believe that the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission or the IHRC is a good mechanism to coordinate aid and to involve the government of Haiti ministries and staff in planning and coordinating the aid. And while it's gotten a slow start, I think such a mechanism actually did work incredibly well in Indonesia and it really should be helpful in Haiti. And I think the same goes for the multi donor trust fund which has been set up through the World Bank. And actually if there's a World Bank staff member in the audience, maybe they can give us an update actually on the fund and what's going on with it because we haven't been able to find a lot of info about it lately. Now how the elections, which I will say very little about, but how that will change who's part of the boards of the IHRC, the trust fund, etc., is actually unclear to me. But also maybe someone here has the information about this and can talk more about it during our discussion. So just two very general points about the election. We will continue to work with the elected government of Haiti on a national level, on a departmental level, and on a local level. And we support democracy in Haiti and we urge donor countries and NGOs to work to strengthen the democratic institutions in Haiti and also to support the public sector in all its facets. Now as I mentioned at the beginning, I'm more than happy to expand on the cholera response by the international community. But from the perspective of a health organization which has not previously worked in a country where there has been a cholera epidemic, we have the following concerns and recommendations. One, there has not been enough clean water provided to affected communities, either through water trucks, through drilling new sources, whether it be boreholes or new pumps, etc., nor by providing community and household level filtration systems. The aquatabs which are being provided in the millions by the international community and the buckets and the jerry cans are simply not sufficient for the turbid water that most of the Haitian population has access to. It also appears to us that the somewhat same, I won't use the word I had written down here, it's a little harsh, but same public health approaches which the international community has applied for decades, which address the symptoms but don't often stop the source or actually stop transmission has been the approach taken in Haiti for cholera. There are stockpiles of vaccine, although not nearly enough, which could have been sent to Haiti at the beginning of the epidemic, but the solution was thought by the experts to be too expensive and not feasible. Now there are over 400,000 doses of vaccine which should be immediately purchased and distributed in Haiti in the least affected areas and also in some of the least effective camps of IDPs, imported prints. And one could start with the pediatric population and actually have a huge impact on morbidity and mortality amongst that population. And then additional orders should be made for it to replace the stock but also to get more of those doses to Haiti. Another issue that we've come across is that clearly antibiotic therapy during the course of the epidemic can actually lessen the severity of disease and can also decrease the amount of bacteria that's excreted once someone is infected. And it should have been and should be more widely used when treating the most severe cases in Haiti rather than just using the oral rehydration salts and the IV fluids. This has been confirmed by experts. There's good data on this and it would appear once again that it was because it's more expensive because it's more complicated this approach was not used in Haiti and it's something that we have some severe concerns about. Lastly, improving access to clean water and sanitation should be a goal for the entire country. In the PDNA, in the action plan, and I think in anyone's overall plans from this point forward when it comes to water and sanitation, we really ought to be aiming for access for 100% of the population. And this will require public works projects. It'll require point of use water purification systems and many other means but I do think that that ought to be the goal, not just to serve half the population. And also in the middle of this epidemic, social marketing and selling of the life saving measures that are available should not be the approach for cost recovery. And also neither should the previously and currently free potable water that's accessible for people in the camps as well as around the country be made for purchase anytime soon. Given that this is actually life saving strategy for the country. I know many of you may have heard that shortly after a couple months after the camps were opened and many people were provided with clean free water for the first time ever. They actually, their water security improved far better than it was before the earthquake. But quickly people were advising the government to actually shut down the free taps so that they could start improving the cost recovery mechanisms and the sustainability of the system. So as Ambassador Joseph said, this is going to be a long epidemic and likely endemic for decades to come. And both the government of Haiti and international donors need to be prepared to engage long term. On top of the needs from the earthquake, we find ourselves combating an entirely preventable outbreak and its consequences. Once again the international community, while it's been incredibly generous and rapid, has also come up with a somewhat inadequate response. And I sincerely hope that we can do better in the coming weeks and months and years. So thank you very much and I look forward to the discussion. Thank you very much Donna. Ambassador Ramden has joined us and we're going to ask him to give us a brief on the status of the elections in Haiti. Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you very much Bob, Ambassador, all the colleagues at the head table. I apologize for being late but these days the Organization of American States which I represent has several issues on its agenda which require full attention. And for your information I'm just coming back from a meeting, we interrupted the meeting on the situation between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Which is requiring the full attention also. We have a special session of foreign ministers present here. But I felt that it was important to keep my promise to the United States Peace Institute to be here this morning, this evening. And to speak a little bit about what is happening in Haiti now at this moment. And you have heard some of the challenges which the Haitians are facing in terms of the cholera epidemic and some of the other difficulty it comes with. I'm not going to speak about that. I'll speak about the elections. I think it's important to put the holding of elections in a broader context when it comes to Haiti. And the broader context is that Haiti as a country, as a people facing enormous challenges and we all are more or less aware of those. Whether it's environmental, the food crisis, the energy crisis, political instability, name it. It's massive. It's something which no other country in the Western Hemisphere is encountering today. There is no country where you get simultaneously in one country all these problems at one point in time. So you can understand the enormous efforts which need to be made to overcome these. And if we want to deal with these issues, including the short-term problems Haiti is facing today, whether that is the immediate impact of the devastation of the earthquake, the hurricanes, the annual challenges in that context, the issues of health, in this case the cholera epidemic, whether it is the displaced persons, the 1.5 million living still in 10 cities, in the many thousands of 10 cities existing throughout Haiti. The only way to deal with that in the current context and the broader context is if we have political stability in Haiti. And that political stability is expected to come to emanate from an electoral process. And that's why these elections are critically important. And I know that there is a lot of discussion within Haiti, within the international community, about why these elections needed to take place now and whether there was a need for elections at all in general. And if that it will change anything. Well, I think it is important to have elections. Ultimately it is a decision of the Haitian authorities and the Haitian political leaders. And when I went to Haiti in March of this year after the United Nations and the OAS had conducted independently studies on the feasibility, the technical feasibility of elections in accordance with the Constitutional provisions, which means basically that elections would have to be held on the 28th of November this year, that we both, the OAS and the United Nations came to the same conclusion that it was feasible to have elections within the context of Haiti, taking into account the challenges on the ground, but it would have been possible to do that. Now, as I said, this is not a matter to be decided upon by the international community or any kind of organization outside of Haiti. It is a responsibility of the Haitians. And that's why we went to Haiti in March and April and discussed with, abroad, a cross section of society, political leaders, civil society, private sector, the CEP, the professional electoral council, the government about the holding of these elections. And again, it was confirmed that yes, elections were important. One argument which came throughout all the discussions then was that Haiti does not do well, and this is not my conclusion, but it is a conclusion from those meetings that Haiti does not do well on the transitional government or on the appointed governments or selected governments. They wanted a constitutionally elected president, a constitutionally legislative body, which had the full mandate. So, recognizing all the challenges, and at that point there was no cholera epidemic. Recognizing all the challenges, an electoral calendar was put together and the request was made to the international community to assist. And that's what the OAS did, as well as the United Nations and other institutions worldwide. Our role was specifically on the registration of voters, especially the new voters coming to each to vote, something like 170,000, to reissue ID cards, national ID cards to those who had lost their ID cards during the earthquake and shortly after, and also to reissue ID cards to those who had left Haiti, Port-au-Prince, to live somewhere else. A fourth group which needed to be taken care of is the deletion of those who deceased to take them out of the electoral list. That is going to take a bit longer. It does not necessarily need to taint the elections if they remain. If you have enough checks and balances put in place on the day of elections. So this is the broader context in which elections took place in Haiti. First of all, a recognition from the Haitian community that there was need for elections. And yes, some of the political parties wanted a little bit of a conditionality built in that the CEP needed to be changed, that there should have been an interim government preparing for these elections and so on. Those are political decisions which are not ours. Those are decisions of the Haitian government on the leadership of President Prival. Haiti needs political stability. Haiti needs an environment to deal in a more inclusive manner with moving forward. Consensus on, for instance, the priorities and needs established by the previous government need to be confirmed or reaffirmed by the incoming government. Constitutional reforms which were presented previously to the previous session, especially in terms of, and that's relevant to the Haitian diaspora community, is the issue of dual nationality. The relationship between the President and the Prime Ministers. The issue of the electoral calendar. Haiti has within a cycle of five years 11 or 12 elections. A country that is so impoverished cannot afford that. Each election costs something like 10 to 12 million U.S. dollars. That is the cost aspect of it. But on top of that, Haiti would remain as a country almost in a constant electoral mode, in a campaign mode, and that's not the best environment again to govern and to provide social and economic development. So these elections took place in that context and we all expected that that kind of political environment which we saw as necessary for Haiti would be created coming out of these elections. Now elections were held on the 28th of November. The expectation was that, that is two days before when I spoke with Ambassador Moulay and Ambassador Granderson, our chief of mission of the joint CARICOM OES observation mission, and both recognized challenges, weaknesses in the process, inefficiencies, but still even the private sector relatively optimistic about the fact that elections could be held. 11,000 polling stations to be put together, almost 40,000 people to be trained to man those polling sites, 1,500 polling centers. It's a massive undertaking in a country which had limited capacity in many ways. The issue of accessibility of some of the areas that in itself compounds the situation. On election day, I think some of the expected weaknesses manifested themselves. And I'll mention four or five of them. One of them was the late opening of polls. Most of them opened on time, but many of them opened an hour later, at least an hour later. That is a logistical exercise that should not have happened. Polling stations, if you organize well, should open 50 minutes later, 20 minutes later, but not an hour, an hour and a half and two hours. Still, in those polling stations, you had enough time to vote because the voting is from six o'clock in the morning until four o'clock. So basically a 10-hour period. So if for eight hours you could vote, I don't think you disenfranchise anybody in the opportunity to vote. But it is still something which should not happen. The other problem was, and it was possibly more widespread throughout the country, is that electors did not know where to go and vote. And that is an organizational weakness that should not occur. It has to do a little bit with the situation on the ground. The devastation in Port-au-Prince is so enormous that the location cannot be completely fine-tuned in terms of street names and house numbers. So there is a problem there. But I think with some other initiatives or activities, you could overcome this by putting more signage outside and indicating better where polling stations are. So this is something which can again be resolved relatively easy. Not finding your polling site has also to do with the fact that the Haitian electorate decided, many of them decided at the last minute to find out. And this is something which I have seen in many countries. The electorate is not that disciplined or often not immediately interested to find out two weeks before where they have to vote. They'll find out two days before or maybe on the day itself. That creates an overload of a system which is already weak. And that is basically what happened in Haiti also. So there is blame here to the CEP as well as to the electorate and their responsibility if there is any blame to be put on anybody. Then the issue of intimidation and forced voting by people. These are the things which we are hearing now. Intimidation is something which absolutely should not be happening in any process. We're looking at at least from the OS perspective to elections which should be free of fear, free of intimidation. People should have the opportunity to go and vote and not be scared about being pressured into either voting in a certain way or not voting at all. Intimidation led to the early closing of some polling stations. My understanding is not more than 50 polling sites were closed earlier but these are details which need to be confirmed over the coming days. If that is the case and if we would have seen a different outcome in that particular district then the most sensible thing would be for the CEP to decide to redo elections in those polling sites to increase the credibility of the process. Now these are things which will be discussed over the coming days these are four or five irregularities which I mentioned. There are some others which we have heard fraud but fraud is a very broad term without specific indication of where, how and who was involved is very difficult to investigate. So if there is fraud it should be a little bit more specified. Issue of ballot stuffing in the ballot boxes again something which need to be looked into. From our perspective as the Organization of American States any irregularity whether general of a general nature or very specific needs to be taken serious, needs to be investigated, needs to be resolved before you have the second round of elections which is scheduled for around mid-January. That is our position and we have stated that on many occasions. But on election day very early on a different process started to emerge and that has to do with not so much the electoral situation but more or less with the political situation. Many of the candidates, the 19 political candidates who were running for president basically had claimed victory each of them for themselves already which is not uncommon for any politician but if you have that kind of situation you expect a certain outcome and a certain display of voters within the country. Any weakness or most of the weaknesses identified early on around 10 o'clock in the morning were immediately connected to massive fraud without indication. Well what you got then is that at 11 o'clock some of the leaders met together in Hotel Caribe and decided that it was time to call for annulment of the elections. Again different views now that some say I never did that I was there but I never signed on to it and all of those things. So this is a general situation. It was though regrettable to have political leaders call for annulment of an election which was still on the way. That in itself is not a very democratic exercise. Especially where you can't indicate specifically where you have the problems. That there were problems immediately acknowledged but calling at that point to annul elections not only and confuse your own voters whether to vote or not to vote will affect the election in terms of outcome. And then the second issue here is that it was irresponsible to call on voters to go on the streets and protest and demonstrate and to basically congregate at the CEP office in Port-au-Prince and so on. We saw that, we were there and we saw people really running towards different locations. That is not good on Election Day. And we said this, we have stated this before that whatever climate is created on Election Day will be the responsibility of the political candidates because they are creating that climate. The CEP has a responsibility to conduct and organize the elections but the general environment is created by political leaders and this was very irresponsible and it remains irresponsible especially in the context of the fact that there is a process established in the professional in the electoral law in Haiti on how the follow-up will be. You run the elections on the 7th of December which is today, yes today, the preliminary I want to make sure, I'm still one day behind because of the 30th of November and my thing. On the 7th of December, the results should be published the preliminary results. So we are, in fact this meeting should take place tomorrow because then you would have a more exciting discussion. We expect election outcomes preliminary results by the end of today, tonight. But you know what happens? There's so much going on in the Haitian society as well as in the international community and in the diaspora community, the speculations are enormous. I hear so many options, so many rumors. You can make lists of top three rumors who is going to win, who is not going to win and what combination and what impact it will have on society while I may make a little joke about this but it is a serious situation because different scenarios will have different impact in society in terms of security, in terms of political stability and that is exactly what Haiti does not need at this point in terms of dealing with cholera, in terms of we have seen the impact of riots and the impact it has on the treatment of cholera patients so we don't want that to happen so we have to call on all and urge all political leaders to remain calm, follow the process. Today, 7th of December, we'll hear the preliminary results there are two, three days until the 9th to basically file your complaints, your objections and to the CEP in a proper manner and then the CEP will have a whole week to investigate those and to pronounce on that and on the 20th, the first round will be officially announced in terms of the final outcome and out of that, from the House of Deputies, the Senate candidates and the president's shell candidates the highest number, the two highest will go to the next round the expectation is that from the 11 senators not many will make it directly in the first round so most of them, two-third or three-quarter will go to a second round then you have the House of Deputies, 99 candidates most likely 10 or 12 will make it straight in the first round the others will go to the second round from the 19 candidates for the president position of president of the Republic of Haiti two will make it in the cut to take part in the second round so the second round is equally important and maybe even more important than the first round because that one is going to be the final one so we have to make sure that our preparation towards the second round is even better and our role is to observe what we have done over the past couple of days the tabulation center and see how the vote count went and how the determination was of who have won and not that is where we are today at this point in time in two hours time things may change we will see so basically in summary I just want to state very clearly that the OAS recognizes that there were irregularities that we need to take them serious that we have to investigate them more importantly that we have to find a resolution we have to resolve those problems so that the second round can start without those inefficiencies that's the first point secondly that we need to have the political leaders on board in terms of their responsible behavior to be displayed in not calling their followers to go out on the street if we see that happening what will happen in the Haitian society is a real clash we were driving on Sunday afternoon around four o'clock and on the corners of the streets we saw 50, 60, hundreds of young people young Haitians standing and doing nothing not even talking to each other but just standing like okay something is going to happen that is an explosive environment and that cannot happen we see political leaders still trying to keep their followers off the street once the outcome is known it will depend on them to keep them off the street of course you can go in with the Haitian national police the Minoos stand so on to create order but that's the second thing the third thing is the third point I'd like to conclude with is that we have an electoral law in Haiti that needs to be followed that is I think the best way of moving forward with all its weaknesses but nobody should expect because there is no such thing as perfect elections nobody should expect that everything would have been in place for perfect elections in Haiti my conclusion is the best possible elections on the circumstances that's what I go for very much okay Ambassador Ramden can stay for only about 10 minutes so I imagine that the first series of questions may be for him I would ask that if you do have a question that you would come to the microphone we are broadcasting this and if you don't come to the microphone your question can't be heard beyond this room but I'd like to start with just one quick question to Ambassador Ramden since yesterday or the day before I've been seeing in the Haitian press speculation that a runoff might include three candidates particularly if the vote tally among the three of them is fairly close what would your reaction to that possibility be is this on? yeah great you know I concluded with one thing is that we have an electoral law in Haiti that does not provide for a runoff with more than two candidates that is the basic premise I go out from but again these are Haitian elections and owned by Haitians and I'm not stating this as an OAS position but if the Haitian community would feel and the Haitian community in Haiti would feel that for reasons of political stability for reasons of general political satisfaction that it would enhance the democratic process to have instead of two three candidates take part in elections then it would be their decision and I think we should respect that I'm not sure how to work out in terms of making exceptions to accommodate a situation but these are very important principles we're talking about if it is done, if it is proposed it should be done for the right reasons and really the right reasons are in this case to foster peace and stability in Haiti and if this can help and if Haitians among themselves in the first place come up with this and own it then it is a decision they can take and they should take them okay we do have some questions that were sent in by our listeners or viewers on the internet and this one is for Ambassador Ramdin the questioner asks that states that international standards suggest that organizations providing technical assistance to an electoral authority should not also serve as official election observers the OES has done this do you see any conflict of interest in this? No, in this case let me be clear you may recall that in 2006 when we provided assistance to the CEP much more in terms of the Bureau of the CEP in the execution in the operations of the Electoral Council that we did not observe the elections we were present as a political presence in Haiti but did not observe elections and that was specifically for that reason we do not want to observe what we have done ourselves this case, this time around we did not provide technical assistance or we were involved in the operations of the elections at all therefore and that's why we decided to focus on the observation of the election what the OES's role was to continue a project which has a broader context in Haiti is that of the civil registry and in that context we continued assisting the Office of National Identity in Haiti not the CEP but the Office of National Identity with the registration of Haitians and part of that is of course Haitians who are eligible to vote that is what the OES has done outside of the electoral process so there is no conflict this time nor in 2006 when we did not observe the elections Okay, would you like to ask your question and please identify yourself Thank you My name is Kim Meiling Clark I'm from AACOM International Development Thank you to all the panelists for coming and particularly Ambassador Ramden for interrupting other obligations to be here and welcome to Ambassador Joseph and I hope we'll see you again a question for any of the panelists but particularly Ambassador Ramden the CNO Comité nationale d'observation released a report yesterday which details many instances of irregularities that you have also cited I was wondering if you could comment on that report and one of the things that they touch upon that you did not was the question of stuffing of ballot boxes in which they found numerous instances of that Did the OES observers find that at all? Thank you very much Thank you very much To start with the last point about the stuffing of ballots I mentioned it briefly as one of the issues that need to be investigated thoroughly but then we need more specific information those who claim that we provide information where who was involved and all those things then you can do a much better investigation our observers as far as I know did not find anything like that we have heard it and that's why I'm saying it should be investigated we should take it serious the report of the CNO I'm very much a favor of favor very much the involvement of civil society in these processes and they had something like 5,000 observers throughout the country so they have I think a good database of what happened what transpired and they should be very much involved in following up on some of the investigations by providing information and credible information and useful for the investigation what I did not think was a right thing to do is to publish results of their own quick counts or polling which they did in a sensitive heightened political environment where votes are being counted where there is an expectation of the political candidates that each of them have won but at least three or four of them that they will make the cut it's very dangerous I think to publish a report stating 43% was this one 46% that one in 28 if that is contradicted by the outcome of the CEP you can imagine what kind of confusion you get in society between not so much the candidates but between those who have voted so that part I think it was kind of irresponsible to do and that plays at this point in Haiti today very much that kind of dynamic like we have an indication of who is going to win so people are starting to getting up making the second round suppose it doesn't happen then we have a little bit of a problem but normally I certainly appreciate their involvement and they should be involved okay would you like to ask your question please tell us who you are hi my name is Asuka I work with Lyndon Arouche I'm an American Economist my question is regarding to just purely out of my response to a lot of Haitian related conference that took place over the past months and so forth that there has been a lot of proposals that are good there has been a lot of critical issues put on the discussion table I mean I'm not that smart but I can figure out people needs water and food sanitation if they are to live and one thing that I don't really understand is why is that it's actually have been taking place for I mean possibly a century it possibly well obviously Ambassador Joseph said it's a process taking place some decades 25 years at least so my question is why despite some solution put on a discussion table why is that there has been non-action isn't there for example it's relevant I hope it's not off the point but for example the case of Ireland where one nation two major banks went bankrupt and one nation right now is declared to be bankrupt one nation being declared to be a debt slave to international banking system for me without addressing that international banking system being not only bankrupt but they are essentially putting people out of Titanic to save the ship and I don't think this practice will in any way help not only Haiti but any third world nations so how do you so my question is why why is that non-action was not not even one action to address water crisis even took place and why it failed there was any and why don't we address this international banking crisis as Mr. Linden is addressing by proposing what Franklin Roosevelt that we need Glass-Steagall I think that you had the question so let's get an answer from the panel Donna maybe you want to address this one I was going to defer sure one quick response is that in fact much action has been taken for providing clean water and providing healthcare services for the cholera epidemic there's actually been a great deal of action I don't know the total amount of the international response but the latest numbers I heard from the US government were that they were if not had already committed were planning to commit over 57 million dollars towards the response the cholera response in and of itself so that's actually significant funding not enough for everything so there's definitely been funding that has been committed there are hundreds of treatment centers and units that have been set up and there actually has been a lot of water provided a lot of things provided just hasn't been sufficient nor rapid enough and I think from my remarks comprehensive enough but it's not to detract from what has been done there actually has been a great deal of work done over the last six weeks of the epidemic and there will be years more to come of work to do so I think that's the most important thing is to keep the realistic focus on what the needs will be and how to match them I'd like to get one of the questions from an internet person a viewer here on the table the question is have the international news organizations responded in the best way possible to the elections and to the cholera outbreak and how should the media change its message to help Haiti Ambassador Ramzan do you have any thoughts on that one? I think the media plays a critical role in general in making sure that things which need to be known are put out there I have the discussion often in my office, my advisor is a former media person and I always complain about the media because and now I have the time to say it because she is right there in the back but she can't say anything now I have difficulty with the media when the only focus is on isolated defense and I think in the case of Haiti it has been a little bit more of that I think there is enough happening in Haiti which is positive and which need to be you know put out in the media also I think the Haitian people in general deserve a better opportunity to tell their story and a lot is positive, a lot of good things are happening but if the media is only going to focus on the negatives the things where things are going wrong and there is no doubt that things are going wrong it will give a wrong impression of the Haitian society as a whole and that is what I have been fighting for a long time is to change the perception about Haiti from not a country continuously in crisis, in problems but a country with opportunities and the Haitian people are very smart very proud people, very creative you can see that in the streets I think each of us who goes to Haiti buys a street out of what I mean all these other things why do we do that simply because maybe we don't realize how much creativity there is in society something is not good in the basics in the construction of society to make good use of people who are proud, smart and creative other countries have used it to the benefits I think the media should focus on that also and I think if you get a better and a more balanced you know media outreach I think it will be useful for Haiti in itself, in the case of the elections it was useful to have the media identify where things went wrong because that is exactly what I would expect them to do I mean we know that good elections are good elections and if they're good, that's fine but what we want to know in an election is where things are not going well and that they have identified I mean in my mind is still this picture of hundreds, thousands of ballots ballots spread out in a polling site that may not have happened throughout the country but at least we know that it happened in one and that would not have been known if a media group had not seen it so this is important but in the case of the elections I have no difficulty with the way the reporting was what the attention was Donna would you care to comment on this or Ambassador Joseph? I think my remarks are similar I actually think that the media has done a fairly good job of covering the crisis I think from the alternative smaller media outlets to larger international media I think that it's been covered quite thoroughly I think as with the earthquake as with any crisis that happens around the world what we would much prefer to see is more of a sustained interest rather than the peaks that we see around the crisis that actually they're tracking the follow-up gets as much press as the emergency and or the lack of follow-up as the case may be with some of the big donors who aren't coming through with the commitments from the donors conference but I do think that overall this year has been a remarkable year for Haiti News in the major outlets let's have a question from this side is this on? yes President and CEO of ROI3 in Seattle, Washington Bob I'm sure you're surprised to see me here and I'm sure we'll conduct later my company is a technology start-up and I have to admit I'm very ignorant to development but I've always done work in Haiti I've volunteered in Haiti in private sector development you mentioned ID cards at what point I mean coming from the tech sector certainly with what Trilogy is doing based in Bellevue, Washington what O'Brien's been doing with his company these markets are ideal for implementing technology solutions so from your perspective when I hear problems like ID cards are there being biometric cards markets tend to be great places for really implementing the greatest and latest technological solutions what about putting voter records on the cloud I mean where they're managed from afar they're not subject to natural disasters electronic voting I mean it's much more difficult to get a country like the United States to convert from one system to another but where you have a country like Haiti where you can kind of start fresh new I don't hear that and I'd love to get your feedback even on the public health solutions you know there's some of that you know going on sponsored by PATH and Gates Foundation some of the things I'm familiar with but I'd like to get more of your perspective on what's being done, what's not being done if it's not being done how will it take to get it going this be my last one okay well thank you very much I think that's an excellent point but a lot of modernization can take place in a society the Haitian ID card National ID card is a project which we started four or five years ago we have now registered 4.7 million Haitians 96% of the adult population have an ID card for the first time in their life it has the features which you would expect an ID card to have it doesn't go into biometrics it doesn't have a magnetic strip but those are the limitations because of the situation in Haiti but it is much more secure and fraud insensitive than many other ID cards in the whole western hemisphere there's a picture on it the fingerprint an address the signature it is a multi-purpose ID card used for banking, for schools, for health and so on general identification and the elections and I think the system works pretty good it is well received by the Haitian society one of the things we noted is that after the earthquake that we thought that many would have lost their ID cards but it was so much treasured that they kept their ID cards with them on themselves so many did not lose their ID cards we can improve on the system and we can talk about what can be done more I'm very much in favor and OES has a project on identity the right to identity that's the concept and we help countries in basically not only establishing an identity card system and a whole office of national identity but also to link it with other sectors like the health sector the tax office the revenue office immigration, police and so on so that you have a proper management of your population database and in the case of Haiti we were going well on our way but the earthquake basically put a halt to it because the next step was to provide documents birth certificates to all Haitians so under 18 years and that would have been for the first time that Haiti would have a complete civil registry that's the basis for a proper planning process and development because if you know where your people live and work it helps in terms of planning and building of facilities, schools hospitals and so on and so on so I think next year once we have a stable environment a constitution elected president I think these things will come up again because this is long-term development planning one of the other projects which we do in relationship to the civil registry that's almost a logical follow up is modernizing the Haitian cadastral system in terms of land title again all these legal issues related to planning also so it's a lot of work to be done, you're right these are opportunities and I hope many can benefit from it but in the first place the Haitians themselves I apologize that I have to leave but the meeting will start soon again on Nicaragua Costa Rica thank you very much thank you very much for joining us the two gentlemen here with questions, I hope they were not for Ambassador Rand but please why don't you go ahead mine was Chiefly, actually Jean-Pierre with the Clinton-Barché fund I am chiefly interested in how do you accommodate or deal with the second camp, sort of the group of 12 who almost essentially no matter what happens have said these elections should have been annulled and in the interest of the legitimacy of the government and also politically stable environment moving forward they must be accommodated dealt with I'd be interested in hearing I think your question has encouraged Ambassador Ramden to sit back down let's have your question for Ambassador Ramden also let him treat that question and then be on his way when the gentleman started speaking about the other 12 and you mean the other political candidates which will not make the cut basically I believe what President Prival has done of creating a relative political stability by having a very inclusive approach even though the party to which he belonged that was his platform the last time around won the elections and he could govern on his own he decided to include five other parties from the other side into the government and I think that's the approach he needs so in some way yes other political stakeholders should be involved in whether it's a national dialogue on consensus building going the same direction building alliances within the Haitian legislative bodies the House of Deputies and the Senate that will be important it's not only about having an elected government it's about having a framework which is going to accommodate and facilitate development so we need all political actors but certainly also the non-political actors to be on board the private sector and civil society this is what Haiti needs and I would hope that two things would facilitate this process one and maybe three things one is the fact that the earthquake created an environment for change for non-belief the other one is that Haiti has a plan of social and economic development which has been adopted by the international community and I think everybody should be behind that and thirdly I would hope that the Haitian diaspora in general would support a more consensual idea of development rather than fragmented in the community in Haiti I think there is an enormous pressure and force that can come from the diaspora to make sure to insist on development in unity rather than in division thank you very much now we'll turn to you sir oh yeah good afternoon my name is Akundar Jafetimiha from the EIR I have two quick questions especially to the ambassador my first question has to do with the what is going on right now in Haiti especially with the color outbreak was foreseeable and for normal it could have been prevented right now the United States Army Corps of Engineers presented a plan to the Obama administration to really suggest a relocation of the people from from the low land to the high land before the rain season started and that was not done and what I'm going to suggest here is that don't you think that there should be enough political pressure and also on moral grounds to reverse that decision and my second question has to do with the fact that Max Everett Moussak of the Haitian American Society of Engineers and Scientists suggested before the Haitian diaspora unity conference in 2009 he suggested that the Pelley Great Dam which was built was one of the greatest construction so my question is that don't you think that what is going on in Haiti right now in order to prevent what happened with the earthquake there should be long-term infrastructural science and ecological development to make sure that the Haitians whenever something like this happens they will have enough ability to avert lots of life and damage to have a high sign of living to prevent something like this from happening again so my question to you ambassador and also to you Donna have any answers to that question thank you well I think this is exactly what the Haitian government and the next government will do is try to avoid even though we have such catastrophe like earthquake that we could deal with it because normally you do not prepare respond to catastrophe after the catastrophe it should be before and I think now in the program we have to rebuild the country we have to consider putting in place all the necessary code to deal with earthquake if that happen again because in the past we do not follow construction code even though in the books in the law everything is there but very often and particularly in the among the pool when they are building the houses then we don't say anything I think now we should follow the law and take that in consideration now in term of the cholera we thought that at the beginning that was that was a possibility but what you have to observe instead of having cholera in the 10 cities or in the slum in Port-au-Prince that started in the countryside you know then and particularly we did not plan for that but for sure now with the the assistance of the international community with power with the WHO and other partners we're working on that a very serious thing Donnie do you have anything to add on that? Several things but I'll limit them I think I think it's the way that Paul Farmer and the rest of us have taken to talking about 2010 is that what we're seeing are just acute crises on top of chronic ones that have existed in the country for a long time now and until we're able to address the chronic crises we're never going to be able to well address the acute ones or do as good of a job as we could have and I think that's just been part of the problem really for many many many different reasons but there's been very little opportunity to address chronic issues in Haiti and I think what that leads to is unfortunately we the educational institutions have not been as well supported as one would hope and so there's a huge cadre of young educable and educated people who could be engaged in sciences and engineering and careers like that to help really build up a solid middle class and Bob actually has written extensively about this about just really trying to engage another generation in Haiti to help solve some of these problems but I think where we see is also just sort of mid-level bureaucrats if you will or mid-level staff in industries who literally either aren't there and many lives were lost in the earthquake but these are the populations that stay in place the people that stay in position election after election are the ones who we need to be supporting more but it's impossible to do right now given how resource-starved the government is and the fact that so much the aid money does not go to support these folks salaries they're actually going to support NGO people salaries so I think we need a real shift in emphasis on whom we're supporting through all of the international aid and try to build up long-term structures in Haiti rather than some of the short-term solutions we've had okay Ernie Praig I'm representing today the Haiti democracy project here in town I'm chairman of the board I also happen to be a former American ambassador to Haiti so I do know the country and I should say that we've had last week the general rally executive director and another member of our board Pastor Gary Teodot Haitian American Protestant Reverend have been down in Haiti with a group of 50 election monitored watchers observers and I just want to make one quick comment myself but then I have a report I just received today I'd like to see if the ambassador would like to respond to it my comment is today is sort of including from the ambassador to the OAS hasn't really gotten to the heart of this very serious debate in recent weeks about the election which have been all the concerns that the Preval government has been trying to tilt this very strongly the election for its own candidate Jusse Lastin and most debate has been around the provisional electoral commission a council that's provided by the constitution was independent and balanced whereas this time it's comprised entirely of Preval supporters so this has been very disturbing particularly since the 2006 elections surprised almost everybody in Washington Haiti had basically free and open elections and everybody agreed this time it's so controversial now let me get to the report I just received this morning of our delegation down there the Haiti democracy projects electoral mission had 250 returns polling returns from the stations provided by the party poll watchers the party there at the polls and they get the returns as counted at the stations and they can pass them out and then our person Jim Morrell and Reverend Thayardot brought them brought these these returns from the northern departments down to the electoral the tabulation center in Port-au-Prince to check them because there had been a lot of reports that these had been altered from what was actually seen to when they got to Port-au-Prince and this was the same the comparison exercise proposed the same we carried out in December 06 when we had similarly election and we were given access to tabulation sent that gave access to official observers such as himself today however the administrative tabulation center Alain Gaultier refused electoral mission access to its returns to make such a comparison without giving any reasons even though the electoral law guarantees accredited observers access to all electoral operations throughout the country this is where we are just before the and we're talking about and this is as our website a much more detailed report but we're going to be doing a whole report in fact as we did last time in coordinating with all the other official observer teams some a lot bigger to see what all of these problems are and it's very focused on critique quite frankly of the government and the international organizations how many terms have you heard political stability here as the rationale for letting almost anything happen this year so what is your reaction to this and shouldn't the government be doing constitutionally allowing the official observers to see what the returns are and then Port-au-Prince what I would say we heard a lot of critics about the election and about irregularities I think all of those critics all of those problems could be solved in the framework of the electoral law I think after the result we're going to have some let's say about one week to contest to protest the result then we will see what happened because today or tomorrow when we have the result it is just a partial result not a definitive result and let us wait exactly what the CEP is going to say because for election in Haiti the CEP is the only judge then let us wait for the CEP I think it might be worth pointing out that I think it was Ambassador Ramden who mentioned the desirability of constitutional change and this is still an issue that is apparently on the table and it's my understanding that it is the constitution itself the necessity of composing a kind of a bottom-up CEP a permanent council that has made it very difficult to get to that step so I think we need to keep our eye on this idea of being able to amend the constitution so that Haiti can indeed get a permanent CEP and perhaps alleviate some of these controversies that inevitably arise it seems to me I agree with you Bob but the constitution exists the existing council it also says two candidates I'm not sure what happens a third candidate they have three candidates and neither one gets 50% in January what do you do then well from what I've been reading there is apparently some obscure provision that if three candidates are clustered together there can be runoff with three and whoever get the most would win that's what I'm hearing but I don't know if it's official I'll get to you in a second sir but here's another question from someone on the internet and this is for Donna it says that the BBC is reporting about a French investigation linking cholera outbreak to the manousta base in the Artibo Neat I wonder if you could comment on that and what might be the impact of that social and otherwise as far as I know there are many investigations going on about the source of the cholera outbreak and not just French and many actually U.S. academic institutions have the bacteria to type it out genomically etc so we hope that there will be an answer actually to the question of the source it's important not to point fingers I think but to actually clinically to help treat and prevent more cases I think it is important to find out how this occurred in a country where it's previously not, we haven't seen cholera for decades so it's hard to comment on the ramifications of what ends up being the source I think that clearly wherever the source was then one needs to take measures to clean it up, make sure it's not still a problem and make sure that no one else is infected from that source the damage has been done unfortunately but I do think that a truthful process of finding out from where it came is important Sir your question Lorenzo Morris Howard University Political Science I have a question that I think is very general goes back to a I suppose a long term bias on my part about the possibility of assuring democratic electoral procedures by circumventing or going around the existing governments because I think I always has impression that the private sector can never even with the best of intentions substitute for existing government and it relates to a statement Ms. Berry made which is that with water projects American I think was the word you used interventions and the loans made some of those projects difficult and the question is more general I suppose than just focusing on water focus on elections too to some extent as we get ready for the second round and Haiti which is to what extent has the international community through funding for the elections through surveillance through observer procedures and others done things that may have made it easier for the government to be less responsive and responsible or to put it differently may have made it more difficult to be directed to the government either for water projects or for elections for that matter that would be more effective than what you have seen in the past No, I really can't comment on the election part of the question I'm just not familiar with where the money went and how it's been helpful I think a position the partners in health has taken for many years is that much more of the aid that's gone to Haiti should be directed to the public sector or to the government institutions so that they can actually pay their own salaries and build up their own you know ministries themselves or at least if it's going through non-profit organizations non-governmental organizations especially in public sector issues like water provision healthcare provision is something to which actually the government, the state is held accountable we as NGOs should be tasked with supporting and building up the government structures ourselves and so that's why for the last ten years with the funding that we've been using in Haiti we've been working in all public clinics and hospitals to support them so that hopefully eventually they will stand on their own and that we're not recreating parallel structures in the country itself Concerning the CEP what I can say is that the professional CEP in Haiti because the process coming from dictatorship to democracy the process is very slow in Haiti but we think in the years coming we should normally have a permanent CEP last question is for you this is from someone watching on the internet who states that the most pressing issue in Haiti right now is housing for the displaced people and wonders if partners in health will be allocating any resources that it has raised for post quake Haiti to meeting that need to the best of my knowledge no we have invested in some temporary housing out much of what actually in the Central Plateau the over 5,000 staff members we have several of them lost their houses in Port-au-Prince so we did put up some temporary structures for their families and for to help house them temporarily we are simply not a housing organization and there are many many others who have far more expertise in this area than we do we have received grants to do housing specifically so it's unlikely that we will build I don't think we have any plans to do any kind of housing work in Port-au-Prince okay thank you and thank you all for coming again today on this balmy tropical day I hate that you know now this meeting is over I've got to send you back out into the breezes so could we thank again our panel and please keep your eyes open for another meeting of the U.S. Institute of Peace Haiti working group toward the end of January thank you very much