26567: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 11 (AP) -- Haitian electoral authorities on Friday
issued a revised presidential candidate list, dropping two businessmen with
U.S. passports who have been barred from running for the highest office in
their native country.
   Dumarsais Simeus, owner of a food services company in Texas, and Samir
Moura, a longtime resident of Florida, were not among the 35 approved
presidential candidates for the first election since a bloody rebellion
forced the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
   Haitian authorities have said for weeks that the constitution bars
anyone from running for president if they have dual nationality and have
not lived in the country for the past five years.
   Simeus successfully appealed to the Supreme Court after he was dropped
from the first candidate list in October. The interim government then
created a commission to review the nationality of all those seeking to run
for president, leading to the decision to drop the two businessmen from the
race.
   Simeus and Moura have both stated they would run regardless of the
electoral council's decision, which they described as politically
motivated.
   Haiti has been struggling to organize the elections, which have been
postponed twice and are now tentatively scheduled for mid-December.
   Max Mathurin, the head of the country's Provisional Electoral Council,
said a new date for the elections would be announced next week.