• Stories
• Haiti
• No Voting Day for Canaan 2 in Haiti

• Share this Story
• Comment
• Print
• Reprint

No Voting Day for Canaan 2 in Haiti

IRP fellow Jenny Asarnow reports from Port-au-Prince

Sunday, March 20, 2011 was voting day in Haiti.

United Nations police stood watch with automatic rifles while crowds in Port-au-Prince turned out to cast their ballots.

They're choosing between former first lady Mirlande Manigat and singer Michel Martelly. In the dusty hills just outside Port-au-Prince, thousands of people displaced by last year's earthquake live in tents in a camp called Canaan 2.

Church was in session but there was no polling station at the camp.

Maybe it's because they're squatters; the government didn't set up a voting station here. Camp residents were supposed to vote at a station a long walk down the road.

Abner Alexandre: "We don't even know where we should vote. And we don't have any vote center here. We have to go to a very distant place to vote. So it doesn't make no sense. I'm not going to vote.

"My biggest hope is security, and I hope that this election will be really free. But I strongly think that only Christ can free this country."

Sonya: "I've been living here for about one year now. I used to live in Claircine, still in Port-au-Prince. But the building was collapsed and I lost four children there. They all died. I lost four children. And now I have four children left.

"I'd like to vote but unfortunately I can't. We don't have any vote center. Our biggest hope is work, education and also we want our children to have a better life. The new government can take measures to improve all these kind of things."

I'm Jenny Asarnow, with support from the International Reporting Project.

Jenny Asarnow is reporting from Haiti on a fellowship with the International Reporting Project (IRP). She is blogging during her trip at the Common Language Project (CLP).

• Reader Comments
• Post a Comment