27791: Craig (news) NYT: Haitian Front-Runner Breaks Silence; Charges Fraud (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig


February 15, 2006

Haitian Front-Runner Breaks Silence; Charges Fraud
By GINGER THOMPSON and AMY BRACKEN

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 14 — René Préval, whose support among the poor 
masses has made him the favorite to become Haiti's next president, stepped out 
of the silence he began after the election last week to charge Tuesday that 
"massive fraud and gross errors had stained the process."

Still, he urged the throngs of people who had paralyzed cities with flaming 
barricades and protests to end the violence and continue demonstrating 
peacefully.

"The Haitian people are frustrated," Mr. Préval said. "They have a right to be 
frustrated. And they have the right to protest. But we must respect private 
property. We must respect the law. We must respect the rights of others.

"Do not give in to anger. Today, let's conduct politics intelligently, without 
violence."

At a news conference at his sister's house in Peguy-Ville, a hillside suburb, 
Mr. Préval rejected election results released so far that showed him with a 
wide margin against his nearest opponent, but slightly short of the 50 percent 
plus one vote that he needs to avoid a runoff. He said the tabulations had been 
rigged against him, but he and his supporters offered little in the way of 
evidence.

In the name of his coalition, Lespwa, the Creole word for hope, Mr. Préval 
demanded that electoral authorities withhold announcing the final results, 
which had been expected Tuesday but were delayed until Wednesday, for a 
transparent recount.

"If you publish the results the way they are now," Mr. Préval said, "Lespwa 
will contest, and the people will contest."

The warnings and calls for calm, live on radio and television stations, seemed 
to have almost immediate effects. Leaders of the interim government and foreign 
diplomats worked on plans for a review of the tabulations. United Nations 
troops began clearing away junked cars, heavy boulders and burning tires 
blocking the main thoroughfares here. Traffic began crawling where angry 
protesters had roamed. Markets began bustling with shoppers. And small 
demonstrations felt more like parties than protests.

"Now I feel happy," said Denis Constant, one of a few hundred people who danced 
through Canapé Vert on Tuesday afternoon. "I don't know whether he will be 
president. But I think things will all work out."

It was unclear to most people how the saga surrounding the elections on Feb. 7 
would end. The contests, organized by an interim government, installed by the 
United States and backed by 9,000 United Nations troops, were widely considered 
crucial to restore a semblance of democracy to a country whose institutions 
have been wrecked by a long history of dictators and whose people were sucked 
into a new cycle of upheaval two years ago when an armed uprising ousted 
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The elections had seemed to pull Haiti back from the brink of civil war. After 
a tumultuous start, large numbers of people waited for hours to cast their 
ballots without a serious incident of violence. But the tabulation and 
accusations from political camps that tally sheets were manipulated have 
re-ignited old fights.

Political analysts close to the negotiations that started after violence flared 
Monday indicated that a special commission could be formed by foreign 
diplomats, the interim government and the United Nations Stabilization Mission 
in Haiti to review the tabulations. Michel Brunache, director of the cabinet of 
the interim president, said in an interview that the commission would not 
include foreigners, but representatives of the Provisional Electoral Council, 
from Mr. Préval's Lespwa party and from the government's executive branch..

To prevent violence, Mr. Brunache said, the government made an agreement with 
Mr. Préval to withhold the final results until the commission had finished its 
review.

"During these elections, Haitian people showed their desire to advance 
democracy," Mr. Préval said, referring to a turnout estimated at more than 60 
percent. "The people are convinced I won in the first round. But when they saw 
the votes for me begin to decline, it was like a cruel hoax. Their hope turned 
to anger."

His camp offered no numbers or documents to refute conclusively the results so 
far, which show him with 48.7 percent of an estimated 90 percent of the 
ballots. Suspicions seemed to focus on an estimated 85,000 blank votes and 
120,000 voided ballots, of about 2.2 million votes that election officials said 
had been cast.

Advisers to Mr. Préval suggested that tens of thousands of Haitians would not 
have walked hours or stood in line to cast blank votes.

Those ballots, by law, have been included in the net totals. Without them, Mr. 
Préval would have, so far, won more than 51 percent of the vote.

Some people, however, see the large number of blanks as reflecting broad 
contempt for their government — which has done little to lift this country out 
of extreme poverty — or of people's disfavor for all 33 presidential 
candidates.

Mr. Préval's advisers also expressed concerns about an estimated 8 percent of 
the ballots that are missing, at least half believed lost or stolen. The 
advisers pointed out the wide discrepancies between the results announced by 
the government and those predicted by independent international organizations.

A slow-count sample of the results by the National Democratic Institute showed 
that Mr. Préval would win in the first round, with 52 to 54 percent of the 
votes. A ballot survey by the Organization of American States showed that Mr. 
Préval would win an estimated 55 percent of the votes.

"We have solid arguments that the results by the government do not reflect 
reality," said Bob Manuel, an adviser to Mr. Préval who was loosely translating 
the candidate's words for the Spanish-speaking news media. "We are asking them 
to wait so we can present evidence."

Residents from a violent slum, Cité Soleil, near Titanyen, 20 miles north of 
the capital, said they found mounds of ballots dumped there, most supporting 
Mr. Préval.

Cité Soleil is a Préval stronghold. A spokesman for the United Nations mission 
here, David Wimhurst, said the ballots could have come from one of the nine 
voting centers trashed on Election Day. But he could not confirm that. Other 
than the images of thousands of pages of documents, the discovery had not been 
confirmed. After the scenes of the discovery were broadcast on television, 
there were reports of barricades going back up in scattered parts of the 
capital and of gangs of young men on motorcycles screaming threats.

As for Tuesday, all tabulations stopped. A high O.A.S. official said work at 
the central tabulation center stopped because barricades kept technicians from 
reporting in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/international/americas/15haiti.html?_r=1&oref=slogin