By The Associated Press

Haiti’s opposition candidate for president has reaffirmed that he won’t participate in a two-candidate runoff on Jan. 24.

In a Thursday interview with Haiti’s Radio Kiskeya, Jude Celestin said he plans to soon make his boycott official with the Provisional Electoral Council.

But electoral authorities say Celestin’s name will still appear on ballots because he never officially withdrew. They say he’s due to compete against government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise.

The Organization of American States this week called upon “the two run-off contenders to participate actively in the election.”

The U.S. and other foreign governments that monitor Haiti say they support holding the runoff this month.

Celestin has asserted there was widespread fraud in the October first round. He says official results putting him in second place were a “ridiculous farce.”

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COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG

Memory neglects the fact that Jude Celestin gained only 4.5% in polls held before the 2010 election. His candidacy was a “synthetic candidacy” created by Rene Preval.  He could never have won, without major fraud, on the part of Preval.

He was finally removed from the ballot when people started to discuss his close involvement with Amarol Duclona and Duclona’s assassination of a French Consul, and also the head of CNE, the State construction office.

Celestin replaced the murdered CNE chief, and signed the documents Preval needed to pull off a $100,000,000 deal in which the government was billed for NEW equipment but actually bought USED equipment.

Celestin was also involved in a scandal that saw a huge stock of government material stolen, and sold by his company.

He should never have been allowed on the ballot, then… or now.

He has no more popularity than he held in 2010 and knows he cannot win a free-and-fair vote.

And so, he steps back, claiming fraud.

Celestin is simply a tool to derail Democracy and set our progress back to the Aristide/Preval concept.

Time to bury Jude Celestin, once and for all.

Perhaps the French government could extradite him for  murder.