Haiti - Moving towards democracy?

The article provides an overview of the political development in Haiti since 1957, with special attention to the development since the fall of the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Dec) in 1986. Since then, the situation has vacillated between dictatorship and democratisation. The elections in 1990 were won by the radical Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas movement. We made some reforms as president, but was ousted by a military coup in September 1991. The military government was responsible for the killing of between 2,000 and 3,000 people. It was forced to step down by international pressure and the arrival of U.S. military troops in September 1994, and Aristide came back to power. In 1995, for the first time in the history of Haiti, an elected president stepped down to let another elected president be sworn in. The new president, Rene Preval, was a close associate of Aristide. Since 1997 there has been much turmoil in the political development in Haiti. Finally, in March 1999, there was an agreement between Preval and some of the opposition parties to have elections. These elections were finally arranged in May and July. The offical results show an overwhelming victory for the party of Aristide, Lafanmi Lavalas, but the results are disputed by the opposition parties. The Organisation of American States, GAS, contested the formula to determine winners of the parlamentary elections.