Latest Haiti Democracy News
Jerline on the Mend
Our coordinator in Croix-des-Bouquets, shot in the neck last month after leaving a women-candidates’ meeting, is able to eat again without a tube
Constitutions Are Replaceable
The Haitians say, “Constitutions are paper, bayonets steel.” But constitutions are also replaceable. Latin American countries have replaced them an average eleven times since independence
An Overstay Foretold?
Quietly and without fanfare, the provision in the new constitution’s first draft that has Jovenel Moïse leaving power on February 7, 2022 has been dropped in the second
Thirty Women to Train on June 29-30
Motivate and educate: These are the themes of a training session for thirty women candidates now set for the Nord-Est Department
Citing, Then Blighting
The historian Claude Moïse, whose book La croix et la bannière the Haiti Democracy Project translated into English in 2002, trenchantly asks how President Moïse can freely avail himself of the constitution by invoking its five-year presidential term, yet violate it by staging a strictly-forbidden referendum on a new constitution. As befits a writer of his stature, he freely acknowledges the complexities, yet in this instance, he fails to resolve them and ends by airily dismissing them in the Haitian manner
Women Propose Mediation
By Vant-Bef Info. With the men talking past each other and perpetuating the crisis, the Ligue Haïtienne des Femmes pour le Renouveau proposes a seven-person mediation drawn from the sectors to break the deadlock
Lights, Camera . . . Ginen
Interviewing on Radio-Télé Ginen (Guinea, for Africa)
Jérémie Forum on Violence Toward Women
Updated with new slide show, May 29. During April 12-16, 2021, the Women Candidates’ Project joined a training in the Grand’Anse to mobilize against violence toward women
Pounding on the Door
At this press conference at the Ritz-Kinam Hotel, the candidates let the world know that women will be pushing on the doors that have kept them from meaningful representation
Transition Is Unconstitutional
By Julie J. Chung, assistant secretary of state. Who would those people be? How chosen? To whom accountable? Under what law? The State Department asks the right questions. But as usual with this genre, it is long on admonitions to Haitians and short on introspection into the U.S. policy failures that brought Haiti to this pass
Referendum Is Unconstitutional
By Georges Michel. The 1987 constitution, Article 3, says, “Toute Consultation Populaire tendant à modifier la Constitution par voie de Referendum est formellement interdite.”
Official Launching of the Women Candidates Project
The women candidates will unveil their campaign this Friday, 10 a.m. at the Ritz Kinam (Kinam II) Hotel on Panamerican. There were only four women in Haiti’s last legislature of 149. They aim to do much better this time
Woman Candidate Shot
While riding home to Croix-des-Bouquets after a women candidates’ meeting on May 6, Jerline is shot in the neck. We don’t know all the circumstances, but violence against women candidates is commonplace and the number-one impediment to their entering politics
Rounding Up the Sud-Est
Wiselaine, our women’s project director, during April 3 – May 3, 2021, set up a women-candidates recruiting structure in the Sud-Est province.
Kidnapping Out of Control
“Insécurité : les citoyens aux abois, les autorités déplorent, dénoncent et promettent” –Radio Métropole
You Want To Change Haiti? Elect Women
So says Wiselaine Dorcélus, head of the women candidates’ project. Here the women candidates meet with an electoral commissioner to discuss ways of getting more women on the ballot
International Women’s Day: Planning
Feminist leaders meet on International Women’s Day to plan how to flood the elections with women candidates, after only four women were allowed into the last legislature of 149
Constitutional ABCs
Article 134-2 makes the new president start immediately after a late election. It juggles the schedule to accommodate this. But in Jovenel Moïse’s case, the amendment was ignored. He wasn’t allowed to start immediately after his election. Out goes Article 134-2, both substance and scheduling
Strategizing Against Violence Toward Girls
The Haiti Democracy Project's Women Candidates' Campaign in concert with the Haiti Adolescent Girls' Network
President Moïse Didn’t Dissolve Parliament
A group of senators effectively did, by blocking the law needed for new elections. –Haitian ambassador Bocchit Edmond writing to the Washington Post