We write for nothing. On social media, it has become a disease. It’s disorienting, and we waste our time in vain outbursts or controversies. It would be time to think about reserving all this energy for what makes sense and has an impact. Let’s try, for example, to address the case of Haiti with the help of John Miller Beauvoir, calmly to grasp the lines of tension and the proposed reforms.<\/p>

Published in Quebec in 2017 by the author and prefaced by Félix Ulloa, the current Vice President of El Salvador with whom the author worked in Haiti for years at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the book titled 'Democracy: Myths and Limits. A Look at the Haitian Experience' is a finely crafted and well-argued synthesis of the terrible failure of Haiti's democratic transition that began with the Constitution of 1987 and advocates for a radical system change after three decades of crises and collective misfortunes. Equally reassuring about Haiti's existential crisis, this book is a stone in the pond. The pond of our failures and blindness. Calling for the establishment of the 'second republic' through the renewal of the normative and constitutional framework governing the political system in order to build a strategic, servant, and modern state, John Miller Beauvoir, known for his sense of well-done work and intellectual rigor, based on fundamental theories and authors, has made a rigorous diagnosis of this chaotic 'electoral democracy' represented by the Haitian case from a meticulous analysis of electoral processes, the weakness of institutions, and the deplorable role of economic, social, and political actors, specializing in scandals, crimes, and all kinds of tricks, not to mention the social, ethical, and economic dimensions.<\/p>

The question mark that punctuates the book's title recalls both this Haitian uniqueness and the complexity of this 'facade democracy' created through the Constitution of 1987, which has shown its limits. The mere alignment with Western norms and institutions – the organization of elections or democratic alternation – has not fully resolved the issues of stability and peaceful power alternation, the Gordian knots of disputed elections in Haiti. It has not resolved the recurring problem of the functioning of political parties, marked by strong discredit while being subjected to violence as a strategy. Yes, and it's despairing.<\/p>

The post-1986 democratization has certainly reshaped Haitian society, interfering at all levels of its organization including judicial and security. But it has nurtured, in return, many widely circulated 'myths' about 'democracy' that poverty, low levels of formal education, a deficit in civic education, populism (the spearhead of mediocrity), the influence of money, and the crisis of representation, among others, only exacerbate. However, cognitive sciences can enlighten us on the mental barriers and cultural biases that hinder the radical change. In short, it is part of a thwarted history of the democratic ideal in Haiti, at the intersection of a people's aspirations for progress left to fend for themselves and an elite with a catastrophic record. Among the vast majority of Haitians – and I’m not just talking about the hardworking rural masses – the notion of liberal or representative democracy is a façade, an illusion.<\/p>

It is not easy to build a state, even more so a state of law with such pitiful actors. It is the citizen who makes the state. The educated citizen, mind you, not the thug. One of the essential contributions of John Miller Beauvoir, who was four years old at the time of Jean-Claude Duvalier's hasty departure, is the emphasis placed on youth and the diaspora as well as the necessity of carrying out a radical change on three levels: the Constitution, the Institutions, and the People (the human resources that will drive governance). From there arises, within the framework of the establishment of the 'second republic', the proposals for a dual-headed presidential regime (President and Vice-President) and a legislative assembly consisting of a single chamber (unicameralism). This indicates that John Miller Beauvoir's choice, a former Senate candidate in 2016, for a 'deconstruction' of the current counterproductive world, focusing on the emergence of meritocracy at the level of public administration and elective functions, is unavoidable.<\/p>

Founded on a complete opposition to the prevailing mediocrity that has favored violent force, corruption, and the disintegration of society, 'the second republic' is primarily oriented towards tackling the inefficiency of public administration and promoting reforms of the legal framework governing elections and party law to encourage youth participation. This digital revolution will be put to the service of effectiveness and good governance. This will lead to the establishment of a Ministry of Digital Affairs by merging it with other existing ministerial portfolios or in replacement of the obsolete Ministry of Communication to establish it as a true paradigm of public action.<\/p>

The bet was not won. Because post-Duvalier Haiti is a real Pandora's box. With the same old formulas and methods of governance, we will get the same catastrophic results. Irremediably. In total, John Miller Beauvoir's work, which brims with pertinent and sometimes judicious explanations, provides an accurate and fundamental historical analysis of a chaotic democratic transition process. This masterful and dense summary constitutes a valuable tool and global keys of interpretation to better understand the complex realities of Haiti after Duvalier and today, reduced to apparent parameters and, most often, primarily apprehended through media treatments of the tensions and dramas that periodically shake it in the course of this elusive more than thirty-year-old democratization.<\/p>

Pierre-Raymond DUMAS
Montreal, May 19, 2023<\/p>