27037: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

   By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 30 (AP) -- Haiti's national elections, set for Jan.
8 and plagued by delays and disorganization, will be postponed for a fourth
time, electoral officials said Friday.
   The presidential and legislative elections -- the first since a
rebellion ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide nearly two years ago --
were to have been held in November, and have since been postponed three
times.
   Delays in distributing 3.5 million voter ID cards, disorganized voting
centers and problems with the voter database were the main reasons for the
latest postponement, Rosemond Pradel, secretary general of Haiti's
Provisional Electoral Council, told The Associated Press.
   There has been no official announcement about the postponement.
   "In public, the date is still Jan. 8, but in private, everybody knows
that this won't be the case, and that we probably won't even be able to
announce a new date for the elections by then," Pradel said in a telephone
interview.
   Max Mathurin, chairman of the Provisional Electoral Council, said the
council would meet with political leaders later Friday to explain the
situation and consider a new date.
   "My goal is to clarify the calendar," Mathurin told AP. He said he would
hold elections "as soon as is realistically possible," but could not
predict when that will be.
   Patrick Fequiere, one of the council's nine members, also could not
predict a new date. "We are just beginning to realize the scale of the
problems," he said on the telephone. The key issue, he said, remains the
scarcity of voting centers.
   Initially, 1,200 voting centers were planned. That number was reduced to
809 because the U.N. stabilization mission to Haiti said it could not
provide security for more locations, he said. "That's not enough places. We
can't reasonably expect people to walk six or seven hours to a voting
center."
   The United Nations and the Organization of American States -- which are
providing most of the logistics for the vote -- declined to comment ahead
of an official announcement by the electoral council.
   There are 35 candidates for president and hundreds for 129 legislative
seats in the elections, which are being funded by the international
community. The winners will replace an interim government installed after
Aristide's ouster in February 2004.