PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Haiti has revealed several proposals for changes to revise the country’s constitution that authorities plan to present to voters starting this week for a referendum that is approaching amid growing unrest.
Public meetings are scheduled to take place across Haiti in the next three weeks, ahead of the April 25 constitutional referendum, which would be the first in more than 30 years.
One of the biggest changes is the omission in the design of an independent commission charged with creating the constitutional changes that have generated heated debates. Haiti’s current constitution prohibits presidents from serving two consecutive terms, but the bill only states that a president cannot serve more than two terms; it says nothing about whether they can be served consecutively.
Human rights lawyer Bill O’Neill told The Associated Press that his interpretation is that the omission would allow a president to serve two consecutive terms. He noted that those who drafted the 1987 Constitution currently in use were emerging from a 29-year-old dictatorship under two so-called “lifelong presidents”: François Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier.
“The writers were very careful not to allow anyone to have too much uninterrupted time in the presidency,” he said.
The new project also eliminates the requirement that to be president of Haiti, one must have lived in the country five consecutive years before the date of the general elections. All it says is that “you must have habitual residence in Haiti”, a change that could allow the diaspora to run for the highest positions in Haiti, which is currently banned. The proposed change would also apply to the position of vice president.
Other proposed changes include mandatory military service for people over 18, the creation of a vice president to replace that of prime minister, and the establishment of a unicameral legislature to be elected every five years to replace the current Senate and House. of Deputies, which was largely dissolved more than a year ago, when President Jovenel Moïse began to govern by decree after the lack of legislative elections.
Another change also calls for legislators to be elected every five years to serve the presidential term, since some senators are elected every two to six years.
“This requires elections every 18 months, on average,” says the document from the independent commission. “The difficulty of respecting this binding electoral agenda plunges the country into a chronic institutional crisis.”
Critics of the proposed changes say they see them as a takeover by Moïse, who says he will step down in February 2022, when his five-year term ends. The opposition, however, argues that his term began when that of ex-president Michel Martelly ended in February 2016, although Moïse only took an oath in February 2017 after a chaotic electoral process that led to the appointment of a provisional president by one year .
Alfredo Antoine, a former legislator, said that the changes are simply a proposal at this point and that people have the right to study them. He also said that opposition leaders should seek to establish a dialogue with Moïse instead of organizing protests while insisting that he step down on Sunday.
“They shouldn’t put oil on the fire,” he said.
Opposition leaders were not immediately available for comment.
Meanwhile, Brian Concannon, an advisor to the Haitian Institute of Justice and Democracy, said the proposed referendum itself is unconstitutional, according to the current constitution. He also notes that an amendment can only take effect when the next president is installed, and that the current president of the government that approved the amendment cannot benefit from it.
“Moïse is clearly ignoring this important limitation,” he said.
As the authorities meet with certain sectors of society to discuss the proposed constitutional changes, some require more inclusion. Ulrich Louisma, a 40-year-old air conditioning repairman, said that other people and officials, in addition to the president, should contribute to a potentially new constitution.
“It can’t be a one-man show,” he said.
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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.