Haitian Women and Elections: Presidents, Politics and Power

Truthout - Reconstructing Haiti is not about buildings, projects or money. It's about power, about who gets to control what the future Haiti looks like. Redistributing power and creating a new society based on different theories and practices of it are perhaps more important in the aftermath of the January 11 earthquake than ever.

This priority is not particular to Haitian women. But they are most often the ones propelling it and they and their children have the most to gain from it because of the special burdens that poverty and insecurity place on them. For the majority of women, their work to transform power is focused on including the excluded: the peasants, the residents of internally displaced people's camps and shantytowns, all those who have little voice or participation in national political and economic decisions and who rarely benefit from those decisions.

What could a new power paradigm that serves women look like? And how might a government emerging from the November 28 elections use its leadership to advance that paradigm? We asked Haitian women their thoughts on women, power and the elections. Read more.



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