UN Security Council heading to Haiti to press for elections

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council is heading to Haiti later this month with a message for President Michel Martelly: It's past time to urgently organize credible elections.

Chile's U.N. Ambassador Cristian Barros Melet, the current council president, told reporters Monday that elections must take place "in order to normalize the legislative process and the presidential process."

Haiti faces an uncertain political future in upcoming months, with Senatorial seats expiring on Jan. 12, exactly five years after a devastating earthquake struck the nation of 10 million people. If the election isn't held in the next week — which is virtually impossible — Martelly will rule by decree.

During the Security Council's Jan. 23-25 visit, Barros Melet said the unanimous message from the 15 members will be that "the priority of the president of Haiti should be to develop a credible electoral timetable — a timetable that is also feasible and can be implemented."

Martelly's administration was supposed to call elections in 2011 for 20 seats in the 30-member Senate, all 99 seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies and 140 municipal positions. He has blamed legislators for blocking a vote that would lead to approval of an electoral law.

Martelly, who is to leave office in 2016, could sign a decree allowing Haiti to hold elections in the first half of the year.

Barros Melet said the council will also be visiting the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, which is being reduced from its current strength, which at the start of November stood at nearly 5,000 troops and 2,300 police.