27504: Hermantin(News)U.N. Peacekeepers tightened security here on Monday as electoral (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Feb. 06, 2006



U.N. Peacekeepers tightened security here on Monday as electoral officials...

BY JOE MOZINGO AND JACQUELINE CHARLES
jmozingo@MiamiHerald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - U.N. Peacekeepers tightened security here on Monday as 
electoral officials sent ballots to polling centers and resolved last minute 
problems in what has been a chaotic lead-up to Haiti's national election 
Tuesday.

A welcome lull in the violence that has dogged the capital for months persisted 
throughout the weekend and Monday, giving officials and observers hope that the 
election will be a peaceful one.

''All systems are go,'' said Gerard Le Chevallier, the chief of U.N. electoral 
assistance here. ``This is going to be the best election Haiti has ever had.''

But tensions remain high, as they have since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide 
fled the country in the face of an opposition movement and an armed rebellion. 
Now a one-time protege of Aristide, the former President Réne Préval, is the 
front runner in the polls, and no one knows who might try to disrupt the 
election with violence -- in a country where such bloodshed has a long history.

The Haitian National Police said armed groups in the capital, and in the 
politically tempestuos city of Gonaives, could pose a serious threat on 
election day.

And then there's the aftermath. Some analysts speculate that an outright Préval 
victory -- in which he gets more than 50 percent of the vote and does not have 
to go to a March 19 run-off -- could spark violent opposition, if he does not 
quickly move to make peace with Aristide's opponents.

The director general of the electoral council, Jacques Bernard, held a press 
conference Monday for foreign and local journalists, trying to reassure the 
public that heightened security measures are in place, and to vote.

''We will remind every Haitian citizen that Haiti's destiny is in your hands,'' 
he said. ``Stand up and make your choice.''

Bernard downplayed concerns there could be mass confusion at the polls.

But Patrick Féquiere, a member of the electoral council who has been highly 
critical of the process, said he expects the biggest problems to be neither 
security or fraud, but chaos caused by poor planning.

Some of the issues electoral observers are concerned about:

• Some voters will have to walk miles to the voting centers because there are 
half the number of centers than in the last election, and because of flaws in 
the system that failed to register some voters at the center closest to their 
home.

• The list of some 36,000 pollworkers is in flux, as electoral officials try to 
rectify glitches, and possibly fraud, that resulted in 1,600 cases of names 
that had been listed multiple times. As they come up with new names there is 
fear that people could end up fighting over the jobs, which pay $50 U.S. -- a 
substantial sum in a country where the average person earns a dollar a day.

• More than 120,000 political party watchers have signed up for access badges 
to observe the voting. If that number showed up, there would be more than 10 
observers and four pollworkers hovering over every voter, creating pandemonium 
in the confined space of the polling centers. Bernard said he will be compelled 
to limit the number of observers in each center to 12 -- a decision that is 
bound to arouse hostility from party members who don't get in.

• The list of voting centers has changed since voters received their 
registration cards, with a sticker telling them where to vote. Of the 800 or so 
centers, Fequiere says 100 of them -- as of Monday -- were still up in the air, 
because leases had not been signed with the building owners, or they had 
lapsed. The council launched a $400,000 local radio and newspaper campaign to 
alert voters of their polling location.

Fequiere says there are too many unknowns going into this election, 
particularly given the combustible political situation in Haiti today.

''I think that administrative flaws threaten the election more than fraud,'' he 
said. ``If Tuesday, the people of this country don't accept the obstacles, then 
I am afraid it's going to be a big flop.''

Others monitoring the process are more optimistic.

''The conditions are much better than I expected several weeks ago,'' said Mark 
Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group. ``There is 
a sense of optimism that there is going to be less violence directed at the 
voting. But there still going to be a situation where crowd control may be a 
serious issue.''