Haiti - Elections : Encourage Haitians to vote a challenge !
As part of the organization of the forthcoming elections and before the disinterest of voters since the polls of 2010, the Citizen Action Observatory of the National Public Sector Authorities (OCAPH), an organization of civil society working in the monitoring of the government action since 2009, presented his "Project Citizen Participation" program, which will be held under the theme "N ap patisipe, N ap vote" which aims to increase the participation rate of 22% in 2010 to at least 45 % for elections this year.
To encourage greater participation of citizens in the next elections, the OCAPH established the Citizens Alliance for Successful Elections (ACIER), composed among other of groupings, youth initiative including SCOUT d’HAITI, "initiative for the development of young people" (IDEJEN), "National Associative Network for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities" (RANIPH), "Mouvman fanm Kafou" (MOFKA), Future Generations of Haiti.
The OCAPH intends to meet this challenge by implementing a plan that includes four major initiatives: a day of citizenship accompanied by an electronic survey on interest subjects (18 May), the implementation of a program of civic education for youth, women and the disabled (ACIER) and the organization of election debates and election observation.
Guerda Prévilon, of IDEJEN, said the lack of information and education is one of the reasons for the low level of participation in elections. "[...] We want through a broad civic education campaign, that youth groups, women and the disabled, have an active part in the process. Our objective is to mobilize the population in order to have inclusive elections [...]".
Magdala Jean Pierre Michel, MOFKA member, points out that "In recent elections, the women participation rate was very low," while more than 50% of the 5.1 million Haitian with CIN are women "Women should vote and vote well. We will make awareness campaigns for women's organizations across the country [...]".
