Haiti - Elections : OCID recommendations for an in-depth reform of the electoral system
Convinced that the success of the democratic transition requires the organization of credible elections, the Citizen Observatory for the Institutionalization of Democracy (OCID) has relaunched its advocacy campaign for the in-depth reform of the Haitian electoral system.
OCID has prepared and submitted to the Special Committee of Reflection on the Constitutional Amendment of the Chamber of Deputies a Memorandum specifically on constitutional clauses relevant to electoral reform.
In this document, the Observatory denounces the two-round majority voting system for the presidential and legislative elections, which entails exorbitant costs and hardly favors the political representation of women in Parliament. Moreover, OCID deplores the fact that the current distribution of seats in the legislature is far from being a demographically equitable political representation.
Should be noted among the recommendations :
The distribution of seats in Parliament in proportion to the weight of the electorate in the departments and constituencies to rationalize the political representation;
A semi-proportional, geographically based ballot system promoting equity in political representation in parliament ;
A simple majority voting system for the presidential election to reduce costs and promote real alliances rather than political shopping in the second round ;
Assigning a third of Senate seats to senators by allowing, as part of a semi-proportional voting, each voter chooses at least one candidate among the three choices that will be allowed to ;
Rationalize the electoral calendar and hold general elections every five years, regardless of the Senate's third-party renewal clause ;
Separate administrative decisions from jurisdictional decisions and provide for an external appeal against judicial decisions of the CEP, in particular before the Constitutional Council which will be able to study the interpretation of the laws, the Constitution and the electoral law ;
Introduce guidelines concerning the conditions imposed for the legal recognition of political parties, ie the requirement to present the signatures of 2% of the national electorate or of department, depending on whether it is a national or departmental party.
