Coronavirus advances in Haiti amid political crisis

Text by: Marie Normand Follow

The latest assessment of the Covid-19 epidemic in Haiti communicated by the authorities reports 50 deaths and 2,640 confirmed cases. The pandemic is progressing amid controversy over the end of President Jovenel Moïse's term. Interview with Frantz Duval, editor-in-chief of the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste.

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RFI : The coronavirus continues to progress in Haiti. Does it extend in particular to the Central Plateau ?

Frantz Duval: Yes, because it is one of the main gateways to the country for people returning from the Dominican Republic. It is a department that maintains contacts and trade with the neighboring country, the border is invisible and people continue to cross as if there were no health crisis or restrictions. In hospitals in the region, more and more people are sick and dead. As screening capacities are limited, those who die with symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus do not enter official statistics.

Do Haitians go to the hospital earlier when they have symptoms ?

In the metropolitan area, yes. But in the rest of the country, this is not yet entirely the case. The stigma is very strong, people do not want us to know they are sick, to be seen in the hospital. This week, Dr. Pape, co-chair of the Multisectoral Pandemic Management Commission, explained in our newspaper that one of his colleagues, a renowned doctor, refused to go to consult while the oxygen level in his blood was dropping dangerously. 
It is in this context that the National Blood Transfusion Center sounds the alarm…

He was already in a difficult situation before the pandemic. Haitians do not like to donate blood unless someone close to them needs it. This is the only collection opportunity. With the coronavirus, it is even more complicated because people do not want to go to hospitals. However, the Blood Transfusion Center still has the same needs: there are always road accident victims, women who give birth by cesarean section. Its director therefore launches an SOS on the front page of the Nouvelliste this Thursday morning. 

The editorial of the day is devoted to a controversy on the date of end of mandate of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. According to article 134.2 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic begins his five-year term on February 7 following the date of his election. What is the reason for this controversy?

This article of the Constitution is not clear and leaves room for several interpretations, in particular in the case where the president could not take up these functions on that date. The head of state, Jovenel Moïse, made his personal account: according to him, his mandate ends on February 7, 2022. But his opponents estimate that it will end a year earlier, on February 7, 2021. The council electoral, which had however organized the elections, refuses to pronounce on this question. This is not the case with the Organization of American States (OAS), which went in the direction of the president. It must be said that since Jovenel Moïse, within this organization, voted in favor of the interim president Juan Guaido in Venezuela, he has become the darling of the OAS who gives him his support every time. This question of length of mandate was not an active debate in public opinion when the OAS decided, because Haitians are more concerned about the coronavirus. But everyone knows that this question will become delicate and we are waiting for the Core Group (the main foreign diplomats present in Haiti) to rule on this thorny issue.

And the OAS would not have acted on its own initiative according to Le Nouvelliste  ?

In the region, the OAS is the sounding board of the United States. She is still on the same line. 

How to explain that the Haitian heads of state resort to external arbitrations, notably from the OAS and the UN?

This comes from the weakness of Haitian institutions. Last year, negotiations between the government and the opposition were unsuccessful. Even today, it is as if there was a need for a mediator. It is something cyclical in the political history of the country. The UN, the OAS or Caricom (the Caribbean Community, editor's note) are regularly called to be judges in a battle of internal politics.

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• Haiti
• Coronavirus
• Jovenel Moses