Albert Ramdin, the outgoing Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), indicated he had been assured by the Haitian authorities that the elections will take place in Haiti on the scheduled dates. Ramdin, who visited Port-au-Prince last week, said that the three rounds of elections will begin on August 9 for a new parliament with more than 2,000 candidates.

Regarding the candidates excluded he declared "The issue with the candidates who are not approved to take part in the presidential elections that is a domestic issue that is on the basis on rules and regulations which Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has insisted on and we have no say in that [...]

We are looking at a fully functional Parliament come January next year and a fully settled legitimate presidency by February next year and that would be a good starting point for the country to continue on a social and economic path to growth."

Recalling that "From the OAS perspective we will be there with an OAS election observation mission and we look forward to the holding of the elections as soon as possible within the framework within two or three rounds, but ninth of August is still the date for the first round," declared Ramdin, who said he was satisfied with the work done on the ground for the elections, noting that although the campaign had not officially started yet "I believe a lot has been done to organise this elections and there is always a lot of work still to be done, but things are progressing well. So far we have had no complaints from a technical point."

SL/ Haitilibre