Election Day

So yesterday was election day in Haiti. Up for grabs was a Senate seat from each zone. Being an event of somewhat importance, Andy Olsen (the mission journalist) and I decided it would be good to document. So the two of us, along with Andy’s friend Chris Phebus, and Seremone an employee of the mission, ventured out to the polling stations in St. Louis and Port de Paix.

It turns out that nobody votes in Haiti, well at least the places we visited. All of the polling stations that we saw were full of people talking and congregating, but not voting. At one point, we asked a lady who was in charge of the section in St. Louis for people with the last names beginning with “T” to “Z,” “How many people have voted so far?” Her reply, several hours into the election, “none.” Apparently the elections drew enough interest to make people get together and talk politics in the yard, but not enough to make people vote.

While we were at this same polling station, Seremone decided that he would like to vote. We encouraged Seremone to take advantage of this civic duty, especially since there was nobody voting and in order to document an election it helps to have someone vote. Despite the fact that Seremone had a legitimate electoral card, his name was not on the list of registered voters, and after a long time of moving from room to room, and trying to explain alphabetical order to several people, Seremone did not get to vote. At one point in the process, Seremone told the people running the office that I was an “international observer,” they looked a little nervous, yet he still did not get to vote.

Port de Paix was much of the same except with more people not voting outside of the election offices. We ate at a local restaurant and watched part of a corny martial arts movie. We decided to give it one more shot after lunch and then it started to rain, so we decided it was not worth it and went back to the mission.

After the day ended, this is what we learned:
-Having an election on a Sunday in a country in which almost everyone attends a time consuming church service is not a good idea.
-People will not vote unless the government can prove that it is legitimate and looking after the needs of the constituency.
-Martial arts movies are stupid.
-I can now put on my resume, “International Observer” for the 2009 Senatorial elections of Haiti.
-Downtown Port de Paix is eerily quiet when the government does not allow vehicles on the roads.
-Apparently if you are a journalist, you can go wherever you want.