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Building a democracy on the ruins of dictatorship is difficult. The challenge is even greater in a country like Haiti where poverty is rampant and the opposition is inexperienced. But democracy is not just political procedure. It is first of all a style of governance that is necessary in this day and age, to ensure and attain progress. It is a political system with checks and balances that requires the participation of the people through elections, helps combat corruption and protects the state from unwise leadership.
Choice is the key word in a democratic system. The people choose a leadership for a definite period of time. That choice may be renewed or not, depending on the prescriptions of the Constitution and the will of the people. But the leaders in power are never meant to remain so forever. Eventually they either lose in elections, or are prevented from running again. As those procedures are in place, people with the same ideology choose to form their political party with the intent of gaining power to do good for the country. Thus, political parties are very important in the political process. It is important that the leaders, the cadres of such parties are prepared in the event that they assume leadership of the nation. If for all institutions in such political system, economic viability is an important argument, it is so as well for political parties that are democratic institutions.
Democracy in the midst of poverty
It is in fact no accident that Haiti's democracy is so volatile, with leadership of the political parties always ready for a fight. Our politics is highly confrontational. The real issues are almost never discussed, due to a culture of politics of personality. Changing that destructive style requires some difficult decisions by the State and those in charge. There must be first of all an admission of the facts. From there we can move on to some logic that may lead us out of the darkness we seem to have sunk in.
We must admit that politics is not just a passion. It is a discipline just like any other that requires knowledge, research and understanding of both the field and the terrain where one would like to apply his thoughts. In a country like Haiti it is extremely difficult for a politician to do research for instance, on vital issues for the country. The reason is simple: the money is just not there. If he wants to find that money, he either has to go to some foreign organization and beg for a few dollars, or dig into his own pocket and do a job that is usually not exhaustive. In fact, it is even hard for a Haitian politician to do a decent polling as to what are the most pressing concerns of the people. How then can one expect the opposition to be well structured to take over government if and when the people call upon them to do so?
Another factor that should be considered is the proliferation of so-called political parties in Haiti. Because the country is so poor with so few viable industries, politics has become a very lucrative potential employer. Hence we have a long list of political parties that should not be considered as such. Many of them are rather political movements. Others are just family enterprises, with the leader hoping that s/he will become president and take his/her particular unit out of economic malaise. There are however ways to end those cycles and ensure that we have a viable democratic system in Haiti where issues are discussed and not personalities. If we want Haiti to become truly democratic, we ought to be willing to try new things.
Strengthening our democratic political system
Haiti has now about sixty political parties with twenty-nine of them registered as such. It is clear however that only a very few of them deserve such title. This is a problem. We need to find a way to end that cycle, of political parties coming and going depending on the time and circumstances. Political parties are an integral part of democratic institutions. They need to exist in such a system to allow the people decent choices. Narrowing the field of parties would ensure a few things. This would amongst other things, help bring more focus to the important issues. It would also guarantee a greater level of stability in the process.
One of the better ways to strengthen our democratic system would be to have in the short term, at most five political parties in Haiti, rather than the sixty we have now. This is doable and desirable. The greatest democratic systems in the world have no more than three viable parties. That ensures stability in return, in their political system. How then can we a poor and small nation, survive the jungle of more than sixty parties? It should be obvious that something drastic must be done to end that cycle. There comes the necessity for some political Darwinism.
Political Darwinism
Only the five fittest must survive. The idea that anyone may go and register their personal political thoughts as the unique prerequisite for constituting a political party is unacceptable. Haiti's next Parliament, if they truly care about resolving that issue, must find a decent and rational way to put an end to it. There is indeed, such a reasonable way.
A few steps can be taken towards achieving that goal. First of all, a political party to have viability must have a following in the population. There is however only one way to find out about that. It is through a referendum. All the parties and movements should go through a referendum where the people vote which party they consider viable, not which party they would necessarily vote for. One may indeed never vote for one party or another, but still consider such party viable.
In this endeavor, the State should give equal access to all the parties and movements through its channels (TNH, the National Radio etc), and encourage the private media to do the same. All parties that choose to take part in the referendum would present their ideas for the country's development to the population. Following that campaign, the referendum should take place. The question asked must be simple and may be formulated as such: which party do you consider worthy of being part of the political process? Because there are so many parties, each individual may have the right to a certain number of choices, not exceeding five. The top five contenders would now be officially recognized and eligible to receive special considerations during election times, in the manner that independent candidates are handled, at this time, by the CEP (Provisional or Permanent Electoral Council). They would subsequently have access to everything from public and private funding, to the use of the state-funded media.
The immediate benefit is this. Rather than dealing with 60 parties, we now would have to only contend with five in the short run. The long-term goal however should be to have only three, solid political parties in Haiti. This would be good for Haiti since it would guarantee continuity in the process, a clear definition and understanding of the goals of the party, an end to the current overlapping of ideas from one party to another. That only creates confusion rather than reasonable expectations for the private sector amongst others, which is extremely important for Haiti.
Funding for the political parties
It is reasonable to assume that many political leaders would at first be reluctant to participate in such a referendum. But the potential economic advantage for their party would be a great incentive for them to give this idea a try. Once those five parties have the full support of the electorate, a monthly check of two hundred thousand Haitian dollars for instance could be made available to them. The total expense in a month for the State of Haiti (not the government) to invest in its democratic system, would be 12 million Haitian dollars or less than 3 million U.S. dollars yearly. If one decides to look at the expense, there may be some hesitation. But this should be rather viewed as an investment in our democracy in terms of party building, and a way of consolidating our meager achievements. This would help in ensuring continuity in the process. In the United States for instance, both political parties do not receive money per se from the Federal Government. But they do however receive money for other reasons, including strengthening American influence abroad. Indeed, the NDI (National Democratic Institute) and the IRI (The International Republican Institute) are largely funded by the U.S. Federal Government. Those two institutes are actual wings of the Democratic and the Republican Party.
In Haiti, the party leadership could use that money for its administration: pay employees; hire consultants; do research; a salary for the top leadership, etc. The political parties in Haiti are currently so poor, that the logic of those not in power has become clouded by emotions. They are highly confrontational and everyone wonders why. Most everyone however refuse to understand the problem from an economic standpoint. Haiti is extremely poor and those who are resolved to do politics do so at times, at great financial cost to themselves. They get particularly enraged and fall into denial when they lose an election and rightfully so. They've invested so much financially, emotionally and intellectually in the process that they refuse to deal with the truth. If we invest in the process, we would do a few things that would be beneficial to the country. We would ensure continuity in the process. We would reduce the risk of destructive confrontation and would allow the politicians to accept the facts and be better prepared and able to do politics.
We should not be fools, however. It is a fact that some would use that money exclusively for personal gains. Since the ultimate goal is to have no more than three solid political parties in Haiti, we should consider a couple of other things. A political party for instance, which has no more than five percent of the electorate after two national elections, should no longer be funded. At that point it should have two options: either merge with another party with which it has ideological affinity, or be removed from the process. In other words, we should legislate so that such grouping no longer has the title of political party, thus the funding. It is almost guaranteed that two such groupings will fall into that category. There may be different reasons for it. One of them is, that the party leadership will misuse the funds one way or the other. At the beginning of that whole process, the funding policy must be liberal enough so that the five parties can use the monthly fund to do as they pleased. But as we get to the final goal of three political parties, we can then start having rules as established by such institution as La Cour Supérieure Des Comptes Et Du Contentieux Administratif, to ensure that the money is put to good use and not to enrich the top leadership. It is good to make the policy very liberal at first, because it would give everyone a chance to see who is really capable of handling the people's money. After all, if the leadership of a political party cannot rationally administer a budget of 2.4 million Haitian dollars yearly, how will it be able to manage the economy of an entire country with a current revenue of over $800 million U.S.?
Where would the money come from?
The money would at first come from the State itself, from places like the DGI (Direction Générale Des Impôts). But there may be a simple solution in the long run. We can do it two ways: either through some special taxation of say one dollar per traveler, or through persuasion. If it is done through some special taxation at the time of purchasing a ticket to Haiti for instance, it is then a quick and easy, if not effective, way to get the money. But if done through persuasion, some system must be put in place.
The Haitian Diaspora is very interested in the affairs of Haiti. When a member of the Haitian Diaspora goes to Haiti from the United States for instance, chances are that s/he carries at least five hundred dollars to spend. Arrangements can be made so while en route to Haiti, an effective five minutes video in Haitian, French and English can be shown on the plane, praising such a system and encouraging the travelers to contribute. The message could be to urge those tourists to put even a one-dollar contribution in an available specific envelope that will be given back to the proper authorities. With at least five hundred people getting off the plane on Haitian soil daily from the U.S., it is easy to see that at the very least that system could bring five hundred dollars a day to that special fund. That would partially reduce the cost to the State, of funding our political parties. The five parties would obviously need their trusted representative working at the airport to ensure that the money is properly counted, and transferred to the right governmental branch for further action.
That fund if too small, could be used at times of elections. If large enough, it can help the CEP (Provisional or Permanent Electoral Council) in its organizing of elections stipends for and the political parties. The size of the donations will depend on the State's creativity and effectiveness. I do believe in any case that if well done, we can have enough of a cash flow to benefit both the CEP and the parties. The State of Haiti for these past May 21, 2000 elections spent over sixty million Haitian dollars (300 million gourdes). In fact, a very large portion of the expenses incurred for the elections were made by the Haitian government. We spent as a nation approximately US$14 million whereas the United States spent a mere $8.5million for the organizing. This proves once again that when there is a will, there is a way.
The benefits
The benefits of reshaping our political landscape are enormous. First of all, we would have better control of our political process. Currently as it is, foreign nations have too much say in our decision-making process, sometimes to our detriment. They in fact finance in large part, our most potent political parties. This is simply not good. Whoever finances you has a certain level of control over you. In the scenario that I presented and which I hope for, the bulk of the fund would be coming from Haitians in the Diaspora, with the Haitian tax payers (les contribuables) picking up the balance. A Haitian politician hence, whether he be from the left or the right, would be accountable to Haitians first. He can feel free to express his ideas without much fear because, he knows he is accountable only to whom he is getting the money from. That may explain why for instance, the Lavalas party leadership states out clearly its belief in finding homegrown solutions to many of Haiti's complex problems. This is a party with more financial independence than all the other ones, at least in appearance. That places its leadership indeed, in a much better position to negotiate in the interest of the country when comes such a time. Any political party on the other hand, which relies heavily for its financing on the largesse of foreign governments, is also at the mercy of such foreign powers. If and when such a party is in power, it will have to respond to the "Hello, do you remember me" kind of question.
The other benefits are almost instantaneous: dramatic reduction of the number of political parties on the ground; more focused discussions on the issues; incentive for the five remaining parties to work hard so they can remain viable in the process, etc. It is also almost certain that under such conditions, when a political party loses the elections, it will search for answers on its tactics and the strategies it used. As it is now, when one loses an election, rather than searching for the answers where they really are, the tendency is to accuse the winner of all sorts of fraud, either real or imagined. The last elections on May 21, 2000 are a good example. While the conclusion reached by the International Observers is virtually the same across board, the opposition is having difficulty admitting to its mistakes in strategy and otherwise that caused them to lose. The opposition indeed invested so much emotionally and financially in those elections, that it is difficult for them now to admit their mistakes. Elections in Haiti may indeed ruin someone. Even when the International Community offers help, it is never that simple. It is true for instance that some international agencies did not give money directly to many of the candidates. Rather, they offered them coupons. To many of us in the Diaspora, that may be taken as an insult. But that is simply the reality.
If we were to adhere to this present proposal, the elections would be mostly financed by the State and the Diaspora as it is now. The political parties would have their own budget and would be in better position to plan how to win in an adversarial system. As things stand now in Haiti, our political system is not adversarial. It is rather inimical.
Haiti is now getting closer to procedural democracy. It can as a country get faster to that form of government. For this dream to become reality, we can either craft our own stability to make the country more viable, or let the chips fall where they may. If we fairly engineer the solutions based on the reality on the ground, it is probable that we will get to where we want to faster and better. If we resort to a pure, non-engineered political Darwinism, we may never get to where we want to be. In fact, we may even revert back to the old ways. For Haiti to move ahead and peacefully so, the winners have to be magnanimous in their ways. They should welcome such a plan or a similar one that gives some autonomy to our political leadership vis-à-vis foreign influence.
Fashioning a democracy where it has never been before requires a strong willingness to be equitable and not destroy the vanquished. After all in a democracy, the winner should always be the people, not a party. Moving towards a much fairer, tighter and more focused political system would greatly improve our chances of becoming a more stable society and achieving our goals of equity.
This is the only way we will make progress. The next legislature has a huge task ahead. It will have to deal with extremely important matters, such as Economic Structural Adjustment, Institutional Reforms, the Army, Agrarian Reform, School Reform, a Permanent Electoral Council, etc… Taking the same highly confrontational approach like the previous parliament, towards the government is a recipe for disaster. Only a careful approach to doing things, and a sense of duty from all our legislators will guarantee us the possibility of slowly but surely becoming a country, with a political system of procedural democracy.
These are no small tasks considering Haiti’s history, and our cultural, dictatorial tendencies. But Haiti can achieve them, if there can be found ways to commit the will-be legislators sometime after the elections. I would even suggest that a system of enforcement of those commitments be created, so everyone knows what may happen in case they create some deadlock in the Parliament, thus the future of the country.
In politics like in life, the secret of success is the possibility for one or a nation, to remain optimistic even when confronting extraordinary adversity. What is necessary at those times and always, is a conscious effort to stay the course, imagine the possibilities and taking a course of action, that is both reasonable and compatible with the final goal. No nation can pull itself out of difficulties like ours, unless there is a firm belief that things can get better, and the conscious effort of all to make the right things happen. I believe Haiti is on its way there. The waves of history are now in our favor.
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