CSMS Magazine Staff Writers
Haiti’s electoral council announced a final date for the hotly contested presidential elections. The country has been in further turmoil since the preliminary results late last year. The country went up in arm, when the government-backed candidate narrowly defeated Sweet Micky, a popular singer, out of the second round runoff. International monitors also found that the results were rigged.
The second round was supposed to take place two weeks ago but was postponed because of the dispute. Haiti’s electoral council announced a new date—March 20th—for the second round and said the final results would be out on 31 March.
The new schedule was finally published on Friday after weeks of delays. But no one knows for sure—between Celestin and Micky—who is going to square off with Mirlande Manigat, the female candidate who came out on top during the first round.
There are rumors of a possible rejection of Celestin in favor of Micky. These rumors are difficult to confirm. However, Hillary Clinton travels to Haiti this Sunday, and observers believe that is one of the main reasons why the electoral council is still unable to ratify either Micky or Celestin.
Under heavy international pressure, Rene Preval was forced to dump Celestin from the race earlier this week, but the Celestin himself has refused to confirm that he will not take part.
“Politically Mr. Celestin is out of the race. Diplomatically there are a lot of pressures to put Mr Celestin out. But legally Mr. Celestin is still in the race,” his adviser Wesny Fevry told Reuters news agency on Friday.
