More than five million people registered to vote in Haiti

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Jul 21, CMC – More than 5.8 million people have been registered to vote in the elections to be held in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country later this year.

General Director of the National Identification Office (ONI), Jean-Baptiste Saint-Cyr, said that the General Electoral Roll (LEG), sent to the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has 5,848,000 registered voters, an increase of just over one million voters compared to the last elections.

The three rounds of elections will begin on August 9 for a new parliament with more than 2,000 candidates.

Saint-Cyr told a news conference that he wanted to dispel any doubt regarding the delivery of National Identification Cards (CIN) so as to allow citizens to elect their representatives.

He said deliveries of the cards were being made and that in order to effectively meet demand, 209 offices have been added to the 140 already existing across the country.

But Saint-Cyr said that while the CIN cards are being distributed, persons whose names were not included on the electoral register when the process closed on May 11, will not be allowed to vote even if they are in possession of the card.

Regarding the identification of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, Saint-Cyr, said that the ONI was not indifferent to the situation of repatriations, claiming that more than 22,000 cards had been delivered to the authorities in the Dominican Republic under the Identification and Documentation Program of Haitian immigrants (PIDIH).

He said people “repatriated will also have their national identification card, provided they are recognized as Haitian by a competent entity”.

The first round of the presidential election is October 25. If no candidate wins outright there will be a runoff December 27.

Of 70 candidates who registered to run, 23 were challenged on legal grounds by a board of lawyers for the CEP. Among those allowed to proceed were Thierry Mayard-Paul, a former interior minister and adviser to Martelly, Mario Andersol, the former chief of Haitian police, and Duly Brutus, Martelly’s foreign affairs minister.