Today marks the 2-year anniversary of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. For a year and a half, the International Organization for Migration has coordinated several communications projects aimed at empowering Haitian tent camp residents. There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to take charge of their lives, but these projects are placing the responsibility for aid failures on the Haitian people while promoting a neoliberal “do it yourself” ideology.

The U.S. government has denounced the recent legitimate presidential election in Nicaragua, while supporing flawed elections in Haiti and Honduras over the last two years. While this U.S. policy may appear baffling, it begins to make sense when you consider the long-standing U.S. political agenda in the region.

Most English-language news media reported on the serious problems that plagued Haiti’s recent elections, including long lines, record low voter turnout, and violence. But they barely mentioned the election’s biggest flaw: the arbitrary banning of more than a dozen political parties from the ballot—most notably Fanmi Lavalas, the country’s most popular party, which has won every election in which it has been allowed to participate.

On November 28 Haitians went to the polls to vote for a new president. However, while the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) validated the elections, other observers have documented that the voting process was rift with irregularities. The following photos question the election's legitimacy, especially with so much at stake in a country in desperate need of reconstruction after the January 12 earthquake.