Cholera complicates campaigning in Haiti

Associated Press

CROIX-DES-BOUQUETS, Haiti

The campaign rally is charging down the street, drums beating, hot-pink signs waving. People mob the candidate, trying to grab his hand or touch his bald head, his smile a half-moon shining in the dusty afternoon light.

Suddenly the mass turns toward a park where thousands more supporters are waiting for the evening’s big speech. The chants get louder, but they aren’t singing about the election anymore.

“Cholera! Cholera!” they sing in time with the music, throwing in a few mocking words to express their displeasure.

The candidate, popular singer Michel “Sweet Micky” Martely, throws back his head in defiance and joins in the song.

With less than two weeks left before the country’s elections, the rapidly spreading disease is infecting even the presidential campaign, with candidates trying both to protect themselves and prevent fear of cholera from distancing them from voters.

Having an election Nov. 28 always was going to be rough.

Ten months have passed since an earthquake killed as many as 300,000 people, destroyed voter rolls, polling places and most of the election headquarters. Rubble is still on the streets. Bodies are still in the rubble. A hurricane this month killed dozens and destroyed roads.

All this in a country that arguably has had just three or four fair, democratic presidential contests in its two centuries as a republic.

Then came cholera.

Until mid-October, there had never been a case of the disease in Haiti — miraculously, some aid workers say. Then it broke out along the rural Artibonite River and spread rapidly.

Officials say the bacteria and its attendant fever and severe diarrhea have killed more than 1,000 people and sent more than 16,000 to hospitals.

The outbreak has highlighted the dangers from the country’s lack of sanitation or clean drinking water and the difficulties of getting medical care in rural areas, urban zones and slums.

Some politicians are using it to inflame opposition to the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, a foreign force of troops and police that has been the dominant security force in Haiti since 2004. U.N. peacekeepers are in charge of security for the elections.