28417: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti's new legislature to usher in Preval (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 7 (Reuters) - Haiti's newly elected
legislature will be installed this week, in time for President-elect Rene
Preval's inauguration next Sunday, election officials said.
     Max Mathurin, the president of Haiti's electoral council, said on
Sunday the lawmakers would take office once they receive certificates
allowing them to register as members of the impoverished Caribbean nation's
48th legislature.
     Mathurin told Reuters the certificates were already being issued,
marking a formal close to a second round of legislative elections on April
21.
     "Once all those elected have received their certificate, they will go
through certain formalities and will probably take office on Tuesday," he
said, noting the legislature will be installed in time for a joint session
that will administer the oath of office to Preval.
     Preval won the presidency after the first round of voting in the
chaotic Caribbean nation on Feb. 7.
     The law requires that Haiti have a legislature in place to administer
the oath.
     The Feb. 7 election was the first in Haiti since former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled the country in February 2004 in the face of an
armed revolt and under international pressure to quit. Haiti has since been
run by a transitional administration with the support of a U.N.
peacekeeping force.
     Preval is a one-time ally of Aristide and, like him, seen as a
champion of the poor. He served as president from 1996 to 2001. In a March
speech before the U.N. Security Council, he appealed to world governments
to step up long-term development aid to Haiti or risk undermining its
fragile democracy.
     U.N. peacekeepers, who deployed nearly two years ago to stabilize the
troubled country, have announced a series of special security measures to
protect the delegations of foreign dignitaries who will attend Preval's
inauguration.
     "We will mobilize about 3,000 troops that will support the Haitian
National Police in this task", said David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the
U.N. mission in Haiti.