Istwa Nou

The municipal elections promised the previous year were held through the spring of 1983 everywhere except the capital. In the north the government's candidates won as arranged. At Cap-Haitien the only opposition member of the assembly was detained for the length of the campaign and the city elected the independent Wilson Borjella anyway. Roger Lafontant, out of range of the foreign press, annulled the results at St Raphael and Petit-Goave for irregularities, and the Port-au-Prince vote was postponed. In August three changes to the constitution were announced: the president could appoint an interim head of state while abroad, he could name a successor, and a super cabinet of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Interior was created. In October the army high command was replaced almost entirely, the officers concerned learning of their retirement from a midnight television broadcast. In December Le Petit Samedi Soir printed a list of eleven possible successors to the presidency. No press was smashed. The issue simply disappeared from the newsstands, which by then was how the government preferred to work.