Haiti's Election Result.

On December 7th Haiti published the provisional results of it's November 28th election. As expected there was no clear winner with only 3 of the 19 Presidential candidates receiving over 10% of the vote leaving a top 3 of;

1. Mirlande Maniget, RDNP, 31.37%

2. Jude Celestin, INITE, 22.48%

3. Michel Martelly, Repons Peyizan, 21.84%

This means that Mirlande Maniget and Jude Celestin will go head to head in a run off poll on January 15th. Worryingly Michel Martelly's supporters have responded to his elimination from the poll with violence.

To coincide with the release of the election results a French scientist has released a report that claims to conclusively prove that Haiti's cholera outbreak was caused by UN peacekeepers. Something which has inflamed the situation further. While they've acknowledged the report the UN have been unable to accept of reject it's findings because sadly it will probably never be possible to conclusively say what caused the outbreak. It is worth remembering though that Haiti is a former French colony so the release of this report seems to be an attempt by France to disrupt the recovery effort by getting Maniget elected as President, something that would be almost certain if she was to face Martelly in a run-off poll. The idea being that if France is able to keep Haiti poor then it will be able to maintain it's influence in the country.


In other news the COP16 Summit has now entered it's high level phase. This is where government ministers and heads of state from across the globe descend on the summit and the tension rises dramatically. Venezuela have called on all delegates to make sure that the high level phase doesn't become a parallel summit and for once I agree with them. Fortunately no heads of state from any of the dominant world powers such as the USA or China will be attending. Britain has prepared by sending Chris Huhne who as a Liberal Democrat will be a controversial figure and the Notting Hill Housing Group have decided today to send me a letter which I haven't opened because it can certainly wait until the weekend.