27716: (news) Chamberlain: Angry Preval supporters protest Haitian vote results (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Angry supporters of
ex-President Rene Preval paralyzed the Haitian capital with burning tires
and roadblocks on Monday as Preval fell further below the 50 percent needed
to win the presidency and allegations of election manipulations mounted.
     Radio reports said a young man was killed and several people were
wounded in gunfire at a demonstration in Tabarre, north of the capital,
where protesters were confronted by members of the 9,000-strong U.N.
peacekeeping force in Haiti.
     On a street in the capital, a U.N. armored personnel carrier plowed
through a barricade of rocks and debris as protesters hurled curses.
     The peaceful atmosphere following last Tuesday's vote began to unravel
amid charges that election officials were tampering with results to prevent
a first-round victory by Preval, a one-time ally of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
who was ousted in a bloody revolt two years ago.
     Like Aristide, Preval is viewed as a champion of the Caribbean
country's poor masses, most of whom live on $1 a day, but he is distrusted
by the small and wealthy elite.
     "We are going to put one million people in the streets in the coming
hours," said John Joel Joseph, a community leader in the Port-au-Prince
slums. "The people won't take this," he added, referring to the latest vote
count.
     Traffic ground to a halt, schools shut down and the United Nations
told its employees to stay home as demonstrators piled wrecked cars and
tree branches in the streets of Port-au-Prince after the latest results.
With 90 percent of the vote counted, the Provisional Electoral Council
reported Preval had 48.7 percent.
     At midday, thousands of protesters, dancing and chanting "Preval is
President!" smashed through the gates of the Montana Hotel and swarmed
through the complex where election officials have been briefing journalists
on the disputed vote count.
     When initial results were announced several days ago, Preval held 61
percent of the vote, comfortably over the 50 percent plus one vote needed
to avoid a runoff on March 19.
     Another ex-president, Leslie Manigat, had 11.84 percent percent and
the main candidate for the business elite, industrialist Charles Baker, was
at 7.9 percent.
     Protesters poured out of the slums and marched near the National
Palace, the upscale Petionville suburb and the vote tabulation center near
the airport, beating drums and chanting support for Preval. They demanded
the unassuming, 63-year-old agronomist be declared the winner without
delay.
     Smoke from burning tires rose near the seaport, the airport and a half
dozen other locations around the sprawling city. The humanitarian group
Doctors Without Borders canceled a convoy to its clinic in the Cite Soleil
slum.
     "Nobody can block Preval. The will of the people is the will of God,"
said Marjorie St.-Fleur. "The people will prevail."
     Hundreds of heavily armed riot police formed a protective cordon
outside the headquarters of the Provisional Electoral Council. Along the
street in front, people wearing yellow Preval T-shirts chanted and carried
branches with three leaves, the symbol of Preval's political coalition
Lespwa, "The Hope."
     "You have seen nothing yet," said a man who identified himself as
Maurice. "We are going to show what the people are capable of."
     Preval himself complained on Sunday that a computer-generated graphic
on the electoral council's Web site had him at 52 percent of the vote at
the time the director-general of the council was telling the media that
Preval only had 49 percent.
     Two of the nine electoral council members, Pierre Richard Duchemin and
Patrick Fequiere, also remarked on the discrepancy and said the vote
tabulation was being manipulated.
     Haiti's short history of democracy since it flung off the dictatorship
of the Duvalier family has been turbulent. Aristide was ousted by an armed
revolt in February 2004 and Washington has urged Preval, if elected, not to
allow the former Roman Catholic priest to return from exile.

   (Additional reporting by Oliver Ellrodt in Marmelade)




 REUTERS