News of a certain implosion within a grouping of politicians who call themselves the Democratic and Popular Sector (SDP) are quickly relayed on local sites. The conference, albeit late, of former Senator Nenel Cassy, Tuesday, August 2, 2022, is timely. The ex-parliamentarian informs that he has let go of his peers, formerly the fiercest opponents of President Jovenel Moïse, having sided with Prime Minister Ariel Henry, thus representing the PHTK, around the famous agreement of September 11, 2021, for a so-called “peaceful and efficient governance. If there is division, tearing or internal struggle as a result of the sharing of a cake to the detriment of an entire nation, what use could it be?
Is a good action at the wrong time in itself a good thing? To better understand such apprehension in relation to this article, it is no less useful to trace the conditions leading to the creation of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The SDP was fighting for a piece of the pie
It was about the beginning of December 2018, a good fringe of the opposition in Haiti gathered under the name Democratic and Popular Sector, in order to bring together if more political forces in the fight against the power of the Haiti Tèt Kale Party (PHTK). Even though, according to this analysis published on Haiti en Marche/Mélodie FM, the two epithets “democratic” and “popular” have been inseparable for at least the second half of the last century, we are not going to dwell on the presence or not of ideological anchoring within the SDP, or even on the place of the movement in view of negotiating power, and therefore political position.
In the said analysis, the author took the trouble to ask whether the creators of the current Democratic and Popular Sector in Haiti are interested in the ideological scope of their name; and to try to find out whether there are within this same sector followers of a certain democratic conception of power and others who are of a more popular sensibility.
As a result, the SDP was created. Whether this remains at the level of discourse, of name or whether this creation is ratified in an official document with a real political framework, it is not the purpose of this article.
Then followed numerous anti-PHTK/Jovenel Moïse demonstrations, in the name of the people, to denounce, among other things, corruption, bad governance, massacres in working-class neighborhoods, misery and insecurity, all at the initiative of a group of socio-political organizations. The SDP quickly distinguished itself by its increasingly radical stance, thus granting its representatives the consideration of fierce opponents of the PHTK until the villainous assassination of Jovenel Moïse.
It was a Saturday, September 11, 2021, at the official residence of the Prime Minister, political organizations, including Fusion, INITE, INIFOS, MTVAyti, Ansanm nou fò, Force louverturienne réformiste, PHTK and SDP signed a political agreement for a “peaceful and effective governance” with the head of government Ariel Henry, having been appointed by the president before his brutal death.
One of the SDP spokespersons, André Michel, even had the audacity to declare on this day that: “The Democratic and Popular Sector has taken the political and historic decision to sign the political agreement for a peaceful and consensual governance of this interim period. It was not an easy decision… but we understood that the time has come to build this country on a consensual basis of permanent dialogue.
He continued, “We sign this political agreement to advance the case of the assassination of President Dorval, to restore security and dismantle the gangs, to release political prisoners … “. Poor President Dorval! Rich G9 and allies, GPèp, 400 Mawozo and others!
“The only concession that has been made is the establishment of a two-headed executive,” stressed Me Michel, as if to say that during the transition there will be no provisional president of the Republic. The country will be led by the Council of Ministers under the direction of Ariel Henry, Prime Minister, reads Le Nouvelliste. It should be noted here that former senator Nenel Cassy, an aborted SDP defector, spent a whole year enjoying the largesse of power, without flinching.
It should also be noted that Prime Minister Ariel Henry promised much, stating that “this agreement includes almost all the legitimate demands and recommendations made by various sectors of national life, in that it will allow the affairs of state to be conducted in harmony and good understanding during the interim period, which I hope will be as short as possible, in order to achieve our main common objective, which is a return to the normal functioning of our democratic institutions on a new basis, in a secure and stable environment.
More than a year later, nothing of the sort has been done. No commitment of the PHTK representative with the SDP and other political organizations has been respected. Not only have provisions not been made for the implementation of the said agreement, but the various bodies provided for have not been created either. In other words, the Republic has not been able to benefit from the signing of the agreement of September 11, 2021 with this fringe of the political opposition / SDP, after more than 12 months of governance. During this period, it is necessary to believe that the misery of the population has become more abject, the insecurity more terrible, the corruption more statist, the justice more rotten, and the gangsterization more social. A real betrayal of the desires of the population, which at one point hoped for a new breath of life from the speeches of those who claimed to defend their interests.
*Between SDP and Nenel Cassy, where is the traitor?
Historically, popular struggles in Haiti are often broken by betrayal. Politicians always make themselves look good by using the suffering of the people for political battles to benefit their own interests to the detriment of the higher interest of the nation.
As far as we are concerned in this article, we understand that the presidential term of Jovenel Moïse, in addition to being unproductive, has been marked by a political instability that he created or did not know how to prevent, thus leaving the field to political opponents to take him to task, in spite of his numerous calls for dialogue until his assassination.
Ironically, before the signing of the September 11, 2021 agreement, the SDP had equated in April 2019 political consultations of the Executive with a cake-sharing initiative. Representatives of the sector even wrote this in a correspondence dated Monday, April 1, 2019. The SDP, in its letter, quoted by AlterPresse, specified that the arrest of all the squanderers of PetroCaribe funds including President Jovenel Moise, all the authors and accomplices of the “massacre of La Saline”, a popular neighborhood in the north of the capital, and the murders perpetrated during the peaceful demonstrations are among the demands of the people that the sector intended to cart.
If those who betrayed the popular movement during the PHTK era are to be considered traitors, it may be difficult to differentiate between the Democratic and Popular Sector and Nenel Cassy, who betrayed, in light of the non-implementation of the September 11 agreement, which was not effective. What is certain is that neither the SDP nor its alleged defector, former senator Nenel Cassy, by signing the September 11 agreement with the executive branch, have brought calm and effective governance to the country, through the PetroCaribe and Massacre trials in popular neighborhoods, the restoration of security and peace, the formation of an electoral council, among others. On the contrary, bandits are replacing the State in several neighborhoods of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and in some provincial cities. The main state institutions are dysfunctional.
SDP, Nenel Cassy, division in the camp of friends turned enemies, political coup or whatever, no interest for the people in sight.
And to think that former Senator Nenel Cassy, a founding member of the SDP, is leaving the SDP by separating himself from the September 11, 2021 Agreement with the PHTK, how on earth can this be of any use to the dying Republic?
