The government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise will advance to the second round of voting with second place candidate Jude Celestin on Dec. 27.
A new poll has been released showing that up to 90 percent of Haitians have deep suspicions of the recent elections in the country, according to media reports Thursday, while opposition supporters continue to protest in the streets, calling the elections a fraud.
The poll was conducted by an independent Brazil-based research group called Igarape. The company did two separate polls to measure public confidence in the elections. The first on the day of the Oct. 25 election and the second on Nov. 5, after the preliminary results were announced.
According to the groups analysis, which will be released Thursday, public confidence dropped drastically after the results were announced.
After the first poll, 82 percent of Haitians polled said they agreed with the statement, “As far as I can see, this election is fair, there is no fraud.”
However, in the second round of polling almost 90 percent of those approached said they believed the opposite.
The poll also found that when asked who of the 54 candidates they voted for, just over 6 percent of Haitians said they voted for the government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise, which would have placed him fourth in the running.
However, preliminary results showed that Moise received 33 percent of the vote, putting him in first place and allowing him to advance to the second round of voting Dec. 27 with the second place candidate Jude Celestin.
One of the authors of the report and research director Robert Muggah warned that the “very large discrepancy” does not prove that the preliminary results are illegitimate, but it does “raise some questions about people’s perceptions about the credibility of the results.”
Opposition supporters have been regularly protesting in the streets since the preliminary results were announced Nov. 5, claiming fraud and demanding a recount.
These protests continued Wednesday with several thousand marching through the capital Port-au-Prince, until they were reportedly dispersed by police shooting rubber bullets at the crowd. According to the Miami Herald, two of the candidates claimed they were injured by the Haitian police during the march, while a third said he was directly threatened by the officials.
The Provisional Elections Council, known as CEP, said it has registered all of the approximate 300 complaints over electoral fraud and they were being taken into serious consideration, according to a communique released by the body last week.
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I’ve read your comments for the past few months and it seems to me that you are being disingenuous to your readers. You are not objective in your comments at all. You tend to lean and or support all governmental actions or views. I think you have a good forum but it is being outrageously mishandled. For public info. Haiti does not have elections, it a a selections process orchestrated by France, Canada and the U.S.A. Try to be objected in the future!!!
I strongly doubt that you have read nearly enough comments to state that we support all Gov actions- We are routinely critical of Martelly, and everyone in all administrations when they are in the wrong.
Please accept my invitation to read back on many of the articles and commentary in the Daily Reports Section.