Apart from the dissenting opinion expressed by the Dominican Republic’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, because of the high-risk geographic proximity for his country, fears that the electoral issue may take precedence over security, it is the near unanimity of the international community on the question of elections that is striking. The headlong rush toward holding elections at every level is provoking a flurry of reactions. It has given rise to numerous theories, some frankly absurd, but all marked by skepticism over whether the elections can actually be carried out. It is obvious that an election organized in a country under the grip of gangs excites very few people, but instead of compiling a list of our grievances, would it not be wiser to try to identify the objective behind the accelerated establishment of a process that is clearly at odds with realities on the ground? One analyst claims that, according to a source he considers trustworthy, all the activity surrounding the publication of the electoral calendar is intended solely to reassure the representatives of China and Russia ahead of the September vote at the United Nations Security Council on a new resolution aimed at extending the Gang Suppression Force for another year. At first glance, this assertion appears to rest on solid indications, except that it attributes a considerable degree of naivety to diplomatic establishments as seasoned as those of Moscow and Beijing. Other hypotheses give too much weight to instinctive mistrust of the United States to lend themselves to rational examination.What if this new direction is simply the beginning of Washington distancing itself from the way Fils-Aimé is managing the country? From the outset, he indicated that he viewed his mandate as a long-term one, since he categorically stated that he would step aside only for an elected president, hence the delaying tactics built around illusory promises and empty formulas. By openly embracing the electoral option, the international community is sending him a strong message: no more delays.

By seeking to remain amid the gilded trappings of a largely ceremonial power, the Prime Minister, like his predecessors, has overlooked an obvious truth: even a man or woman who has rendered exceptional service to a nation cannot claim to remain in power indefinitely, much less a leader with such a meager record after nearly six months at the head of the country. The negligible progress made in restoring security is due more to gangs abandoning the areas they occupied than to sustained assaults by the police and the army. It is not that we underestimate the difficulty of the task, but those in charge should have exercised a certain restraint instead of taunting the population by boasting of major breakthroughs in this area. As a radio commentator observed, when a child who is now six years old, born in Port-au-Prince, the capital of a country surrounded by water on three sides, has never known the simple joy of swimming in the sea, that fact alone, through the very ordinariness of the example, illustrates the gap between the self-congratulation constantly expressed by those in power and the dreary daily lives of the population.