Key stakeholders at the Organization of American States (OAS) recently reviewed Haiti’s state of readiness for the Nov. 28, 2010 General Election.
Representatives of member states and permanent observers of the OAS participated in a meeting of the “Haiti Group of Friends,” in Washington DC recently.
OAS Secretary General Albert Ramdin informed the meeting of some of the challenges being faced by Haiti’s Office of National Identity (ONI) and Haitian citizens in the lead-up to the election.
Ramdin, who met a day earlier with the director of Haiti’s ONI, said the registration process was being challenged by limited resources, given the large amount of Haitian citizens trying to register to vote two months before the polls.
The secretary general indicated that Haitians were also concerned about the possibility of tropical storms ahead of the election, which would compromise the electoral process since thousands of Haitians are still living in tent cities.
“While the international community, for good reason, is focusing on the electoral process and the politics of the country, we must not forget that there are still millions of Haitians living in difficult circumstances,” he said.
“Those are not the best circumstances to have a population go into an electoral process and this is one of the concerns we should keep in mind for the next two months,” Ramdin added.
