The Organization of American States (OAS) stated Monday that Haiti's Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections were valid despite reported serious irregularities that caused 12 presidential candidates to call for the cancellation of the vote even while it was still in progress.
Colin Granderson, head of the Joint Election Observation Mission in Haiti for the OAS and countries of the Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM) reported their decision about the election. In his press release, he noted irregularities were serious, but did not invalidate the process.
Some of the reported irregularities included the late opening of polling stations, the large number of voters who could not find their names on the registers, and an over-saturated call center meant to help voters to find their polling stations.
The mission also reported acts of violence, intimidation to derail the electoral process, as well as an atmosphere poisoned by fraud allegations sometimes even before the voting started.
They called the request to cancel the vote by the 12 candidates regrettable. Albert Ramdin, OAS secretary general, said the "irregularities need to be taken very seriously, [and] need to be investigated."
