Feminist groups against installation of new CEP members

PORT AU PRINCE (CMC):

At least 10 women organisations have condemned the decision of President Jovenel Moise to install a nine-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), warning that the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country is sinking “back into dictatorship”.

Moise last week installed the CEP members after a divided Haitian Supreme Court opted not to swear them into office. Moise had named the five men and four women to the council by a decree published in Le Moniteur, the state-owned newspaper, as the country prepares for fresh elections.

Moïse has been accused of violating the constitution by picking representatives from sectors not prescribed in the 1987 amended constitution and for mandating them to prepare a referendum to give Haiti a new constitution.

Haiti’s legislative elections were due in October last year and as a result, Moise is ruling by decree. There is currently a debate as to when the elections are due, with the last being held in 2015.

In a joint statement, the women’s group accused Moise of “illegally” appointing a new CEP with one of the mandates being “to organise a referendum in order to endow the country of a new constitution”.

The group said the action is a “political act that confirms the authoritarian inclinations of Moïse”.

The group says that it can “in no case be involved in a process which violates and puts on hold the constitution, of a project likely to undermine democratic gains and threaten the existence of social movements and the feminist movement”.

Moreover, the women groups insist that the conditions for democratic elections are not in place, reiterating that they are “not involved in the CEP fabricated by the executive” and are calling on democratic institutions and organisations “to block any project that would sink the country back into dictatorship”.

The women groups said that they firmly believe in the need for a “Haitian and lasting solution to the sociopolitical crisis and structural inequalities which exclude the majority of populations, in particular women”.

Moise came to office in 2017 and there are experts saying that his term ends next year, but he has argued that he has a five-year term and as such it ends in 2022.