WITNESSING Haiti's giant step toward democracy was almost as exhilarating for foreign observers at the Dec. 16 elections as it was for voters themselves. ''It was an absolute miracle,'' says Robert Rotberg, an expert on Haiti and one of 33 international election monitors serving on former President Carter's team there. Describing it as Haiti's first fully free election ever, he says everyone present could feel the voter determination to ''get it right'' this time.
The challenge was considerable. Haiti has one of this hemisphere's highest illiteracy rates and lowest per capita income levels. Its people have endured almost three decades of dictatorship under the Duvalier family. The last attempt at a genuine democratic election in 1987 led to the massacre of at least 34 voters.
Sobered, but not deterred, eligible Haitians registered in record numbers for this year's election. Several hundred international observers, including delegations from the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS), monitored about 14,000 polling places, each serving about 250 voters.
Despite equipment delays and occasional backups of voters, the process moved smoothly, these observers say. An estimated 2 million people voted, about 70 percent of registered voters.
Dr. Rotberg, president of Pennsylvania's Lafayette College, says his most exciting moment as an observer came during the ballot count. He and a colleague spent election day monitoring about 120 polling places in and near Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city. Though in no way required to have election observers present for ballot tallying, polling officials wanted the added support. ''We were not just invited but commanded to appear,'' Rotberg says. ''They'd say, 'We're ready for you now.'''
Pride in the process
''In many cases, they would pass the ballot around to observers so we could also see how it was marked,'' notes Larry Garber, author of a handbook on guidelines for international election observers. He attributes the eagerness to include observers in the tallying to both pride and insecurity.
Mr. Garber, who has monitored 10 other democratic elections around the world in recent years, says this vote is ''a very important step forward for Haiti.'' Despite a persistent election rumor in Haiti that a plastic strip had been placed on each ballot, to be peeled away after the vote, Rotberg says it became clear at a post-election debriefing for all monitors in his group that fraud was no part of this vote. He says he saw only six or seven spoiled ballots. That, and the absence of violence during the election, are a remarkable achievement, he says.
The official joint statement of the Institute and Mr. Carter's, Council of Freely-Elected heads of government,describes the election campaign as ''remarkably peaceful,'' the count as ''meticulous,'' and the result - though votes are still being counted - an ''impressive success.'' The cooperation of Haiti's Army, which has staged several coups in recent years and is widely thought to have had a hand in the 1987 violence, has come in for praise.
Yet Garber says there were several occasions in recent months when Haiti's election process might easily have collapsed. He cites two instances. One was a squabble between Haiti's interim Council of State and interim Haitian President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot over what to do about the return to Haiti of two former associates of dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.
Carter's role
Carter intervened, says Garber, to stress that Haiti's president was focused on the next positive step - elections - and that it was the important thing. Carter also led in urging the United Nations, which had been dragging its feet, to respond to a request from Haiti's leaders to send UN security advisers to work on election plans with the Army. The former president and others ''just kept on pushing to keep things on track,'' Garber says.
Other valuable election lessons have been learned, he says. One is not to ignore key segments of society, such as the armed forces, though they may have caused trouble in the past. ''I think the effort to co-opt Haiti's armed forces was successful,'' he says.
Deterring fraud in advance
Also important, he believes, are periodic advance visits by observers like Carter that keep the pressure on. ''You can't just come in on election day and expect to be able to observe in a really effective manner.''
Also, the tabulation of a parallel vote with an eye to confirming official results and deterring fraud was another key contribution of outside observers, provided by the UN and OAS in both Haiti and Nicaragua, Garber says.
In Haiti, where the vote was sampled in 150 polling stations, the practice takes on added significance because counting of the ballots has been so slow. Garber says it is this parallel vote count that conveyed news that Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the presidential before all ballots were counted.
seems like we stopped making progress...cant fault the white man for that...between 1990 and 2004 there were 4 military coups
how was the election rigged in his favor and by who? 
a house divided cannot stand...
white man really owns your mind 
we seen the same scenario repeated for centuries butnyet we keep falling for it...
...cant even fault him really, he's just one in a 200 year long line of fukked up ass visionless leaders...