1936–1937: (L’État, C’est Vincent: The September Elections, the State of Siege, and the Slide Back to Dictatorship): No reader of the Haitian papers could ha…

1936–1937: (L’État, C’est Vincent: The September Elections, the State of Siege, and the Slide Back to Dictatorship): No reader of the Haitian papers could have learned much about the difficulties besetting Vincent — the country had been under a state of siege almost since the Marines left and the tightly controlled press emitted only sycophantic paeans. In fact, the program single-mindedly followed by the president was a smooth transition, behind due facades of legality, from representative government to dictatorship. The September 1936 elections — the country’s first general elections since désoccupation — presented voters with unopposed government candidates for every seat in the Chamber of Deputies and with preprinted government slates which voters were forbidden to alter. As Vincent soon told Calixte: the Government makes the Constitution, the Laws, the Regulations and Agreements — such instruments could not handicap its activities and it must dispense with them whenever measures deemed necessary for the maintenance of the Government rendered such a decision necessary. By the end of 1936, L’État c’est Vincent, and the masses remained disenfranchised under an authoritarian mulâtre oligarchy with little to show other than its own perpetuation in power. The evil old distinctions of class, region, and color were again operating full force, and despite Colonel Calixte’s best efforts to preserve the legacy of the Marines, reports of deterioration and politics within the Garde confirmed that storm signals could be perceived ahead.