A Haitian cabinet minister wants February's already troubled legislative elections postponed, in the wake of this month's devastating earthquake.
"I don't see how the elections can go ahead," Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, Haiti's Minister of Culture and Communications, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.
After numerous delays, caused by Haiti's perpetually confused and contentious political climate, elections for the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Haitian National Assembly) are scheduled for Feb. 28, barely a month from now.
But with hundreds of thousands of residents in Port-au-Prince rendered homeless by the quake, which also destroyed much of the machinery of government, holding the elections would be impossible, Ms. Lassegue said.
She urged that they be postponed "at least until November," when presidential elections are scheduled.
Even natural disasters, however, cannot suppress the political instinct. When questioned about likely resistance to a delay from opposition parties, Ms. Lassegue replied that she had expected opposition politicians to be more visible assisting the homeless. "But I don't see them."
The upcoming elections have already been marred by accusations that the political party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted from power in 2004, has been unfairly banned from competing in next month's elections.
Supporters of Mr. Aristide, who has suggested he might return from exile in the wake of the quake, have threatened to boycott or disrupt next month's planned vote.
Mr. Aristide lost favour after concentrating increasing power in his own hands, after first being democratically elected in 1991.
Further delay is expected to strengthen the hand of President René Préval's new Unity coalition, which has become increasingly dominant.
Though Mr. Préval is prohibited from serving another term as president, he is widely seen to be positioning himself to dominate the next government, in the manner of former Russian president Vladimir Putin.
He favours changes to the constitution - a blend of American and French models - in order to reduce the seemingly perpetual votes for president and upper and lower house, and to strengthen the powers of the executive.
Mr. Préval may even get to serve another year or more as President because meeting even a November deadline is unlikely, given Haiti's track record at holding elections and the magnitude of damage from the quake.
Nonetheless, Ms. Lassegue maintained the disaster was beyond politics.
"It's a non-political event. Everyone in the country has friends and parents who have died," she said.
The minister acknowledged that there was anger among the population about the lack of a response from the government to the tragedy. In future, she said, "we have to be well prepared." In a separate interview with an American journalist, Ms. Lassegue talked about how diofficult it was in the days after the quake to work with some international aid agencies.
"In the beginning, we didn't know what was in the planes," she said. The non-governmental organizations "did not do [relief work]in [concert]with our priorities." It took the U.S. soldiers more than a week to arrive, she said, because President Préval was working with local officials to figure out where to send the troops.
The minister rejected criticism that the government had failed to communicate with the people after the quake, citing dozens of interviews she had given to local and foreign media. But "the public was shocked, and it will never be satisfied," she acknowledged.