23758: (pub) Chamberlain: Haiti election panel in turmoil as head resigns (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 9 (Reuters) - The head of a panel
organizing elections in Haiti next year to replace ousted president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide has resigned, warning that other panel members were
trying to rig the ballot.
     Panel chairwoman Roselor Julien, a representative of the Catholic
Church, cleared her desk on Tuesday after handing in her resignation the
day before, and said the council was not capable of ensuring the 2005
election would be free and fair.
     "I resign because I am not ready to condone an electoral farce,"
Julien told Reuters.
     Aristide, who became Haiti's first freely elected leader but later
faced accusations of corruption and despotism, was ousted on Feb. 29 after
a monthlong armed revolt and under U.S. and French pressure to quit.
     An interim administration led by Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was
appointed to run the unstable Caribbean country until fresh elections in
December 2005, and Brazilian-led U.N. troops are trying to keep the peace.
     Citing death threats, Julien said she had been pressured to allow
other members of the nine-person council to manipulate the electoral
process to the benefit of their political parties or interest groups.
     She also said businessmen who lead the anti-Aristide Group of 184 were
trying to railroad a $112 million election plan that included buying
computer voting technology.
     That proposal has been criticized because electricity in Haiti, the
poorest country in the Americas, is at best unreliable. Julien said it
would only benefit the businessmen and would make the election vulnerable
to manipulation.
     The electoral council's credibility has been tainted from the start
because of a refusal by Aristide's Lavalas Family party -- still backed by
many among Haiti's poor  -- to take part. Apart from Julien, all the panel
members are known Aristide foes or represent organizations opposed to him.
     Julien's abrupt departure has further undermined the panel's
legitimacy and raised questions as to whether democratic elections next
year can end the political tensions that have killed dozens since Aristide
was deposed.
     "This electoral council is no longer credible," Mirlande Manigat, No.
2 in a political party called the Union of National Progressive Democrats,
said on Tuesday.
     Council Secretary General Rosemond Pradel said Julien would have been
"wiser to resign in a more elegant manner."
     "She presents everybody as the devil, she accuses everybody of
corruption, of manipulating the process. Those are false accusations,"
Pradel said.
     Julien said she first came under pressure when she opposed the $112
million plan presented by Council Treasurer Francois Benoit, a
representative of the private sector, to run the election, including buying
electronic voting machines.
     Industrialist Charles Henry Baker, a spokesman of the Group of 184,
denied any nefarious intentions.
     "We are fighting for free and fair elections. If they call it
manipulation, yes we are guilty," he said.