U.S. to work with Haiti on elections

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The United States will work with Haiti to hold elections as soon as practical, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday morning after meeting with Haiti President Rene Preval.

Clinton met with Preval before the pair went to the White House to discuss ongoing relief efforts for Haiti in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake that wrecked what was already the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. The U.S. has supplied nearly $700 million in assistance, and nearly one half of all households in America have contributed something to private relief efforts, Clinton said.

“We must work toward elections to ensure the stability and legitimacy of the Haitian government,” Clinton said. “I assured President Preval that the United States would work with the international community to hold elections as soon as appropriate.”

But Clinton noted the extent of the destruction in Haiti as a bar to immediate elections.

“There are many specific problems that must be addressed, from how we get people into safe housing before and during the rainy season, to how we provide fertilizer and seed to Haiti’s farmers so that they can begin planting, to how we get Haiti’s factories going again and start new factories throughout the country,” she said.

“The recovery of Haiti will take a long time, and everybody must be aware of that,” Preval said. “Political stability is something fundamental for the development of a country.”

Elections were needed at some point, Preval said, to reassure the international community so that it would invest in Haiti’s future.

“What we must absolutely avoid is that we have a temporary provisional government that does not enjoy legitimacy. We must have a government that does have political legitimacy,” Preval said.

-- Michael Muskal

Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal