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#4502: Haiti opposition group urges president to step down (fwd)
From:nozier@tradewind.net
WIRE:07/03/2000 17:41:00 ET
Haiti opposition group urges president to step down
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, July 3 (Reuters) - An opposition party
coalition said on Monday that Haitian President Rene Preval and his
government should step down and the recent parliamentary elections
should be held over. "We don't accept the elections, and we don't
recognise Preval. We don't believe in him.We don't trust him," said
Reynold Georges, leader of the Alliance for the Liberation and
Advancement of Haiti, one of the six major opposition parties that
makes up the Convergence coalition. "We demand new elections with a
professional government." Georges and Convergence asked Preval to
resign after allegations that votes were miscounted in the May 21
elections.They also contend that the election results, published last
week by Haiti's electoral council in spite of the departure of three
members,were invalid. The parliamentary election, Haiti's first
national vote in more than three years, was considered a crucial step
in establishing a stable democracy in Haiti after decades of
dictatorship and military rule. But the results were questioned last
month by election monitors with the Organisation of American States,
who said Haiti's electoral council had miscalculated voting
percentages for the first-round winners.
The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), which supervised the vote,
said it followed an internationally accepted formula used in prior
elections and would not recalculate the votes. Haiti's opposition
parties, along with the international community and local business
leaders, have protested the miscalculated votes, and pressed the
Haitian government and the CEP to reexamine them.After the publication
of election results, which yielded a victory for Lavalas Family, the
popular party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,Convergence
leaders said they would not accept the results. Last month, all
opposition parties withdrew their candidates from the June 22
parliamentary election in the Grand Anse department, which voted three
weeks after Haiti's eight other provinces, and from the nationwide
runoff election scheduled for July 9.Convergence successfully pushed for
the resignation of two CEP workers, both of them members of the
Espace de Concertation party,a Convergence member.From now on, we're
going to work together and make the unification of the political
parties a reality,"said Georges, explaining that all opposition
candidates will run together under the Convergence party in future
elections. "We know that together we're going to overthrow the regime.
The regime in question refers to Fanmi Lavalas (Lavalas Family),
Preval,Aristide, everyone." Haiti's government has been paralysed for
most of the past three years after parliamentary elections held in
April 1997 were declared fraudulent. President Rene Preval dissolved
Parliament in January 1999 and has ruled by decree since. A U.S.-led
invasion force in 1994 restored Aristide,Haiti's first freely elected
president, after a military coup removed him from office in 1991.