Haiti to hold presidential vote in November, after hurricane delay
Haiti will hold the first round of its serially delayed presidential election on Nov. 20 to give time for people in areas of the country affected by Hurricane Matthew to recover enough to vote, the electoral council said on October 14.
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The new vote, previously set for Oct. 9, was postponed when the Category 4 hurricane barreled through the southwestern part of the country. Villages were flattened, and newly homeless families filled schools that were to be used as polling stations.
Electoral council president Leopold Berlanger said it was important to ensure the legitimacy of the winning candidates by ensuring large sections of the population affected by the storm can still vote.
"We want to be able to organize elections in all regions for all citizens, especially at the presidential level, said Berlanger.
"We want to organize credible, transparent and democratic elections; we cannot organize elections that will be contested," he told a news conference. A second round runoff will be held on Jan. 29, he said.
The hurricane killed 1,000 people, according to a Reuters tally of deaths reported by local mayors. A central government tally put the number at 546, but that count takes longer to complete because officials must visit every village to confirm the dead.
The United Nations said 1.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and 200,000 were made homeless.
Sandra Honore, the UN’s Haiti envoy, said 70 percent or more of voting centers could have been affected by the hurricane in the two worst-hit departments of the country.
