27555: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 8 (AP) -- U.N. troops mobilized helicopters, trucks
and even mules Wednesday to recover ballots from remote areas in an arduous
vote-counting process as Haitians nervously awaited results of long-delayed
presidential and legislative elections.
   Bleary-eyed election workers counted ballots by candlelight into the
late evening after Tuesday's vote, which officials hailed as a success
despite massive delays that crippled polling stations and enraged voters.
The poll was largely free of violence.
   An international observer said turnout was high, although no official
figures were available.
   Rene Preval, a 63-year-old agronomist who led Haiti in 1996-2001, was
the front-runner among 33 presidential candidates. His closest rivals
include Charles Henri Baker, 50, a wealthy garment factory owner, and
Leslie Manigat, 75, who was president for five months in 1988 until the
army ousted him.
   Myrlande Manigat, a candidate for senate and the wife of Leslie Manigat,
said initial reports from party representatives monitoring the vote count
indicate Preval has a big lead in her western district, which includes much
of metropolitan Port-au-Prince and outlying areas of the capital.
   She attributed Preval's apparent lead in the district to his party's
superior organization and the refusal of other parties to back a single,
opposing candidate.
   The elections, held under the watch of a 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping
force, were deemed vital to averting a political and economic meltdown in
the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
   If no candidate wins a majority in the first round, the top two
finishers will compete in a March 19 runoff.
   The vote count gained momentum as election workers returned to polls
early Wednesday. Ballots from 40 of the 800 polling stations have been
counted and will be transported to the capital later Wednesday, U.N.
spokesman David Wimhurst said.
   A trickle of early results should be released later Wednesday, but a
final tally was not expected until Friday at the earliest, Wimhurst said.
   "We're still in early days. We have to get the stuff down from the
mountain on mules ... so it's going to take a while," he said. "We're
sending helicopters so they will help as well."
   The United Nations has not received any reports of fraud or other major
irregularities in the voting, Wimhurst said.
   A huge turnout all but overwhelmed electoral officials, who conceded
they were ill-prepared for the crush of voters who formed long lines before
dawn.
   Many Haitians voted by candlelight after spending hours in lines
stretching up to a mile at some polling stations.
   "People were yelling and screaming to get inside the voting booths,"
said Mona Joseph, 21, one of the last people to vote.
   She had to go to several different polling centers in Port-au-Prince
before finding her name on the voter registry.
   Many stations opened late, lacking the necessary workers, security and
ballots to handle the crush of voters who turned out by foot, car and
brightly colored buses.
   Outside the gang-controlled Cite Soleil slum, frustrated voters pounded
on empty ballot boxes and chanted, "It's time for Cite Soleil to vote!"
   Many people in Cite Soleil accuse the government of trying to
disenfranchise them, citing as proof a decision not to put polling stations
there. Officials said it was for security reasons.
   In the rural northern town of Gros Morne, a Haitian policeman shot and
killed a man in line at a polling station; a mob then killed the officer, a
U.N. spokesman said.
   Experts called the election a step toward democracy in the destitute
Caribbean country, saying the heavy turnout showed Haitians felt safe
despite warnings that chronic violence would keep voters away. At least
four deaths were reported, but authorities said the balloting was largely
free of violence.
   Jose Miguel Insulza, head of the Organization of American States, said
"a large majority of the Haitian population voted," although no specific
numbers were available.
   "We will have a democratic government ... that this country has fought
so long and hard to have," Insulza told reporters.
   In the aftermath of a February 2004 rebellion that toppled President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, gangs have gone on a kidnapping spree and factories
have closed because of security problems and a shortage of foreign
investment.
   ------
   Associated Press writers Joseph B. Frazier in Marmelade and Michael
Norton in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.