The Post was right to push for elections in Haiti [“A democracy on hold,” editorial, Feb. 28], but those elections need to be free and fair. The last four elections in Haiti were fraudulent, according to former election commissioners . This occurs because U.S. policymakers, despite paying for the elections with taxpayers’ money, are willing to settle for the mere appearance of elections because they are so relieved to be having them at all. This saddles the country with an incubus of corrupt incompetents who then constitute a near-insuperable obstacle to the country’s progress.
Haiti did pull off three good elections in 2006, and it has a corps of competent people in its businesses, civil society and diaspora. Lacking is a U.S. policy willing to use them.
- James Morrell, Washington
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