The Royal Caribbean cruise company announces that it is cancelling its cruises to Haiti, due to fears of violent protests taking place in the country against the holding of the second round of presidential elections, scheduled for this Sunday.
The Royal Caribbean cruise company announces that it is cancelling its cruises to Haiti, due to fears of violent protests taking place in the country against the holding of the second round of presidential elections, scheduled for this Sunday.
The decision comes two days after a group of protesters prevented more than 3,000 tourists who arrived aboard a cruise ship from the company at the port of Labadee, in the north of the country, from making the visit scheduled for that day and forced them to remain on the ship, which left the Haitian coast earlier than planned.
In recent days, violent demonstrations have taken place in various cities across the country, a situation that is beginning to affect tourism, a sector in which significant investment has been made during the last four years, after about 15 years with hardly any tourist activity.
Cruise ships, in fact, represent one of the main sources of income for the tourism sector in Haiti, and given this electoral crisis, there are fears that the economic situation will become even more precarious.
Haiti is scheduled to hold the second round of its presidential elections this Sunday, January 24, but there is great uncertainty about whether they will actually take place, given the opposition's demand for a postponement.
The candidate from that party, Jude Celestin, has announced that he will not participate in the elections, considering that there was fraud in the first round, on October 25.
Celestin and the official candidate Jovenel Moise received the most votes in that election round and were going to compete for power in a second round, which was originally scheduled to be held on December 27, 2015.
Haitian electoral law stipulates that if one of the candidates in the second round does not attend the elections, he must be replaced by the third most voted candidate, who was Moise Jean Charles, but he has also said that he will not participate in the elections.
