27531: Hermantin(News)There's chaos and confusion, but no violence as Haitians cast be (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Sun Sentinel



There's chaos and confusion, but no violence as Haitians cast ballots




By Tim Collie
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

February 7, 2006, 12:15 PM EST



PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Plagued by chaos and confusion -- but very little violence -- 
Haitians turned out in huge numbers Tuesday to vote in elections designed to 
create a stable government after two years of turmoil.

Lining up by the thousands just before dawn, many voters reported to polling 
places in near-total disarray. Many did not open as scheduled at 6 a.m., and in 
the poorest areas of the city some still had not opened by 11 a.m.

At least one man died and several women were injured when crowds surged forward 
against the gates of several polling centers. Police used tear gas on a crowd 
at one site in Port-au-Prince, but there was none of the murderous violence 
that has marred other Haitian elections.

Outside the vast seaside slum of Cité Soleil, thousands of men and women stood 
in line outside a decrepit auto inspection plant that lacked voting materials. 
Ballots had not arrived, and there were not enough tables and chairs to erect 
makeshift voting booths, said the manager.

"They are not letting us vote because we're the poor, and they're afraid who we 
are going to vote for,'' said 62-year-old Elsterne Dazouloute, a Cité Soleil 
resident. The slum is a stronghold of presidential frontrunner Rene Preval, and 
hundreds of would-be voters began chanting his name by 8 a.m.

Waving the branches of trees -- a Haitian ritual -- part of the crowd broke out 
of line and began running up Delmas Boulevard and then toward the presidential 
palace. But the Haitian riot police and United Nations troops took no action 
and the sing-song march continued peacefully.

Many voters were angry over what they called the worst-managed election they 
had seen in Haiti, but others were astounded by the turnout. In middle- and 
upper-class sections of the capital city, lines stretched for nearly a mile, 
winding through neighborhoods, along walls and circling back again.

"I've never seen so many people in my life lined up peacefully like this,'' 
said Edwidge Kenn-Fouchard, 70, as she stood inside a polling place in 
Petionville, the upper class enclave that sits above Port-au-Prince.

"I don't know how all of these people are going to vote, and I don't really 
care, but the important thing is that they felt compelled to come out like 
this. We Haitians want our country back, and we realize we're the only ones who 
can fix it. I want to leave something for my grandchildren."

``There's some frustration and anger on the voting lines,'' said David 
Wimhurst, spokesman for the United Nations, which has 9,000 troops and police 
trying to maintain order in the troubled nation. ``People have been waiting 
several hours now and in some cases they haven't even got inside.''

Helicopters, trucks and pack mules are carrying election supplies into remote 
corners of the country. Roughly 92 percent of the 3.5 million people who 
registered to vote had collected their identity cards, a sign that turnout 
likely will be very high, according to election officials.

Polls have favored the 63-year-old Preval, a former president and agronomist 
who led the country from 1996 to 2001. Others among the near-three dozen 
presidential candidates are businessman Charles Henri Baker and Leslie Manigat, 
who was president for 4-1/2 months in 1988 until a coup ousted him.

The field also includes the leader of the rebel insurgency that forced 
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office in February 2004 and a former army 
officer accused in the death of a Haitian journalist.

If no candidate wins a majority, the top two finishers would compete in a March 
19 runoff. About 1,300 candidates also are running for 129 parliamentary seats.

There were no reports of election violence elsewhere in the rugged, mountainous 
country, the poorest in the Western hemisphere. Polls are being protected by a 
recently buttressed 9,300-member United Nations peacekeeping force of soldiers 
from Brazil, France, Jordan, Chile, China and other countries.

Tim Collie can be reached at tcollie@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4573.
Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel