The United States and the European Union refused to fund it. And United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended that the U.N. mission in Haiti should end when its current mandate expires next February. Faced with international isolation and antagonism even before he has taken office, Aristide may have won the race, but it will be difficult for him to carry out his grassroots mandate. But the discord over the vote also reflects the radically different ways Haitians and foreigners see Aristide and democracy. They are part of a citizens' campaign to keep traffic thin and the day peaceful.
Children play soccer between the barricades, moving rocks when necessary to let a car pass.
He is speaking, in part, about an electoral dispute that began last May when opposition candidates contested the results of local and legislative elections swept by Aristide's Lavalas Family party. Although the vote was fair, the opposition candidates, backed by the OAS, contended that because of counting flaws ten of the Lavalas winners, who swept sixteen of seventeen senate seats, should have been forced into runoffs. Since the Haitian government refused to redress grievances concerning the May vote, they claim that Aristide is a despot, seeking to stack the parliament with flunkies. Lavalas supporters respond that the opposition, which was going to lose the elections anyway, had nothing to lose by boycotting them. Following the OAS refusal to monitor the November 26 election, the United States did not send official observers or provide electoral assistance.