26685: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 25 (AP) -- Haiti's electoral board on Friday again
postponed the first elections since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, saying it needs need more time to organize the vote in the
impoverished country.
   The nine-member Provisional Electoral Council set a new date of Jan. 8
for presidential and legislative elections, followed by a Feb. 15 runoff.
   Council members said they would be unable to set up polling sites by
Dec. 27 -- the election date announced last week by interim Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue -- because of crumbling infrastructure and a lack of
trained election workers in the poorest nation in the Americas.
   "Our main responsibility was to make sure that the vote did not turn to
a fiasco," council member Patrick Fequiere told The Associated Press.
   The postponement marks the fourth date Haitian authorities have set for
elections to replace the interim government installed after a violent
rebellion forced Aristide into exile in South Africa in February 2004.
   International observers have urged Haiti to not hold the elections at
the end of December, warning that the holiday season would result in lower
voter turnout. Observers also said the country needs to do more to stem
political violence that has killed more than 1,500 people since the
rebellion.
   But the latest postponement means Haiti will now miss an important
deadline.
   Under the constitution, the five-year term of the president is supposed
to begin and end on Feb. 7, to mark the anniversary of the 1986 demise of
the 29-year father-and-son Duvalier dictatorship. The new election date
makes it impossible to have a new government installed by then, election
officials said.
   "For practical reasons, it was inevitable that we would miss the
deadline," Fequiere said.
   Council Secretary-General Rosemond Pradel said the council has not
finished printing ballots, distributing more than 2.5 million voter
identification cards and training poll workers. But he vowed that the
elections will now certainly be held on Jan. 8.
   "There was a series of practical points that needed to be addressed for
the elections to take place in serene conditions," Pradel said. "These
dates are the real dates, perfectly final and based on serious planing."
   Several private organizations expressed similar views in recent days. In
a report released hours before the election was postponed, the
Brussels-based International Crisis Group urged Haiti to delay the
balloting.
   "Holding these elections over the holidays will mean low turnout and
insufficient international observation," said Alain Deletroz, director of
the group's Latin American Program. "And one month is not enough time to
fix the serious organizational and security problems."
   Voters will choose from about 35 candidates for president and hundreds
of candidates for 129 legislative seats.
   The revolt that ousted Aristide, a former priest hugely popular among
the poor but who was accused of corruption while in office, was led by
former soldiers linked to the repressive military regimes of Haiti's dark
past.