I wrote an opinion piece two weeks ago inquiring what does the Dominican Republic want? This week my esteemed colleague columnist David Jessop in his weekly column The View from Europe shows the writing on the wall.
His article continues the conversation by revealing that the Dominican Republic is entering into a joint trade agreement with Cuba and Puerto Rico, leading to a common market leaving Haiti out of the loop. It is time to question what do the Haitian people and its government want? Does this rich and promising country plan to remain forever into the Middle Ages era, not venturing into modernism with all the exigencies of the nation building mantra?
Engulfed into the imbroglio of an election that did not have a final closure, a transitory government is leading the course of the country with the proviso that it will schedule presidential and other legislative balloting at the earliest convenience. There have been widespread allegations that the departing president has skewed the voting apparatus to the profit of his presidential and other candidates of his choice.
The people have asked for a committee to investigate the irregularities before proceeding to the next step. The international committee and the presidential candidate Jovenel Moise are crying foul. President Jocelerme Privert has stood firm – the commission is at work reviewing the collected data. There is though a Rubicon to cross.
Under a tight schedule road map under the agreement leading to the departure of the past president, the enthroning of the new president should have taken place on May 14. But delays caused by the legislature in accepting a new prime minister proposed by the president derailed the process.
Will May 14 be like February 7, a fatidic day that brings the eye of May upon Haiti? The legislature that was a party leading to the negotiation birthing the Privert/Jean Charles government has played high stakes in taking their marbles from the political game. Will they continue to demand more chips to continue the game of making prince and princess?
All this musical chairs of a political drama has no interest of Haiti and its people at heart. From one government to the other, the fate of the average Haitian citizen remains the same. With meager resources the government is almost like an elephant bloated with all type of conveniences that are denied to the Haitian people.
The institutions are in deep crisis. The healthcare apparatus is under a complete breakdown, with the strike of the medical doctors in training demanding a better salary than the paltry $100 per month. They are requesting $1,000 as well as a better environment for the patients.
The infrastructure is crumbling. An important bridge that links the north of Haiti to the capital has fallen down because allegedly some panhandlers have unscrewed essential bolts for sale as scrap metal. The rainy season has fallen upon Haiti with the good and the bad, inundation and flood upon the low-land areas.
The question is still begging. Will Haiti under a transitory or a permanent government make the decision to build the country as a hospitable nation with or without the permission of the international community? The Core group (France, Spain, United States, and Canada) is firm; they will not deal with a transitory government. Yet Haiti has a better chance to confront its structural problems with a transitory government than with a permanent one.
The reason is that corruption is so rampant that the legislature will not sit nor vote on important issues unless it is paid. Haiti needs a break from this corrupt apparatus to build an infrastructure of decency in the way it conducts business for the benefit of its citizens.
The spectacle of millions of men and women idle or underemployed because they do not have adequate education indicates that, some 20 years ago, successive Haitian governments during that time did not care to create a critical mass of educated people who could take their fate in their own hands. There is no plan to do so now or recapture those who have been left behind and preparing better the new generation for future challenges.
There is a growing chorus amongst the political class demanding a halt for preparing and agreeing upon a common agenda to rebuild Haiti as a nation. The Core group in the line of the foreign affairs policy of the United States is not interested in the nation building project. Trapped into the decorum of faux democracy, it is demanding the veneer of democracy without the essence of democracy.
Cuba and the Dominican Republic have rebuked the advances of the international community to forge nation building projects that have borne fruits. They are in a much better shape than the rest of the Caribbean. The Privert/Jean Charles government is exhibiting some signs that they want to break with the past in putting first the interest of the Haitian people.
Can it overcome the appetite, nay the greed of a section of the legislature that exacts money for legislating? Haiti is hungry for a project of society that would include these five principles.
1. Rally all sectors of the society for the building of a sentiment of appurtenance that will considerate each Haitian person as an asset worthy of the empowerment from the national legacy to enrich the whole.
2. Build decent institutions and superb infrastructure from the hinterland to the capital to root each Haitian person in his locality so he will not become an internal or an external nomad.
3. Extend the welcome mat to those who have been left behind, in particular those from the rural world and the ghetto areas of the cities.
4. Regain the vision of the ancestors, in particular Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Alexandre Petion for a Haiti that shows the light for the rest of the world in joining Cuba and the Dominican Republic to lead the rest of the Caribbean to felicity.
5. Accept the obligation to leave promptly at the end of the government mandate with a thank you bow for having served without mortgaging the human and the natural resources of the nation.
The brotherly neighbors of Cuba and the Dominican Republic might have to shake up Haiti to its national vision; otherwise their international vision of a common market in the region will not stand the test of time. Hispaniola remains a bird with two wings. It needs both wings to fly to the zenith. Haiti and the Dominican Republic must adjust their respective wings to dance the tango in perfection!
• Jean Hervé Charles LLB, MSW, JD is an ex-candidate to the Haitian presidential election of 2015. He works now with the group named G30, a political network of 30 former presidential candidates that vow to use their energy as one to change the face of Haiti into a nation hospitable to its entire people. He can be reached at jeanhcharles@aol.com and followed at Caribbean News Now/Haiti. Published with the permission of Caribbean News Now.
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