Word: haiti
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...gold-trimmed letters marking Haiti's Legislative Palace still shine brightly on the front wall of the seaside building in Port-au-Prince. But the massive earthquake that hit the nation on Jan. 12, killing more than 200,000 people, left a hole on one side of the structure, exposing a black wrought-iron staircase. The quake ripped open the building's opposite side, where detritus like metal, concrete, chairs, desks and paper scraps spewed forth like volcanic lava...
...Haiti's parliamentarians now operate out of a trailer on the grounds of the old police academy - and their ranks are as much in disarray as the palace they used to use. Of the 30 Senators (three from each of the country's 10 departments, or regions), two died in the temblor; one seat was already unfilled before the quake; and 10 members finished their terms last November. But the country wasn't prepared to hold a vote even then, and so their tenures were extended to May - after which only about half the chamber will be occupied. (See pictures...
That's just the beginning of the mathematical chaos that's fallen on Haiti's political system like a shower of earthquake debris. Elections for President, Senators, deputies and myriad regional posts were all supposed to take place this year. But as the government crawls out from one of the worst natural disasters of modern times, the challenge of holding those contests looks daunting at best, especially since Haiti is the western hemisphere's poorest country. But Haitian President René Préval and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week urged that legislative elections, which were supposed...
...brief interview with TIME this week in Port-au-Prince, Préval, whose presidency will end next February, because he is not eligible to run for another five-year term, insisted that "elections are a necessity" - an essential condition for Haiti's post-quake recovery as well as long-term development. "Elections may not happen tomorrow, but they will happen before I leave," he said. "We have 11 months. We have to start to plan as quickly as possible." (See a pictorial history of Haiti's misery...
...only it were that easy. In the country's most populous department, which includes Port-au-Prince, almost half the voting booths were destroyed or lost in the quake - which also killed the head of the U.N. team that oversees the logistical, technical and security facets of Haiti's elections. A new U.N. team arrived this week and still has to be trained. What's more, ruined voter-registration rolls, which are on backup computer files somewhere in Mexico, have to be retrieved. And that doesn't include cleaning up the list before the elections, distributing new voter cards...