27553: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti counts votes in presidential election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jim Loney and Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Early results trickled in on
Wednesday from Haiti's first election since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was
deposed two years ago, and international observers said the vote was
relatively clean and nonviolent.
     At least four people died during a day of sometimes-chaotic balloting
in which some polling stations opened -- and closed -- hours later than
scheduled. One of the dead was a policeman killed by a mob after he shot
someone, but there was no widespread bloodshed.
     Counting began shortly after polls closed on Tuesday, but officials
have said the winner might not be known for days. Poll workers pored over
ballots by candlelight in places where there was no electricity and some
ballot boxes traveled from mountainous, remote areas by mule.
     By morning, they had completed the count in one center, a large,
trash-strewn warehouse near the Cite Soleil slum.
     A tally of 20 polling stations in that center produced the expected
result -- 75 percent for Rene Preval, a former president and Aristide
protege.
     Among his top rivals, former President Leslie Manigat took 10 percent
and industrialist Charles Baker 3 percent. The sample of about 3,700 votes
was likely not representative because it was so close to a Preval
stronghold.
     The election could prove troublesome for U.S. policymakers, who
pressured Aristide to leave after an armed revolt in 2004 only to find his
one-time ally, Preval, favored to win.
     Preval, one of 33 candidates, must capture more than 50 percent of
votes cast to avoid a runoff on March 19.
     Haitian election authorities said the repeatedly delayed vote appeared
to have been a success, but others cried fraud.
     Baker, who ran a distant second Preval in pre-ballot opinion polls,
disagreed. He said the election had "a lot of problems."
     "We have some problems with the process," Baker told Reuters
television, citing the late opening of many polling stations and what he
said were indications some voters had cast more than one ballot.
     The turnout was among the best for any election in the short
democratic history of the poorest country in the Americas, officials said.
Baker called the turnout "massive" but said the electoral process was
unable to cope.
     "People were voting three, four, five times," he said. "Was it
widespread? We don't know yet."
     The election, delayed several times since November by problems
registering 3.5 million voters and hiring thousands of poll workers,
brought hordes from the slums where Aristide, now exiled in South Africa,
was adored. They appeared to vote heavily for Preval.
     Some voters said the turnout proved the people of Haiti -- beset by
poverty, violence and political turmoil -- desperately wanted democracy
despite their nation's struggles since the brutal Duvalier family
dictatorship ended in 1986.
     "Finally the elections took place and they are good elections of which
all Haitians can be proud," said Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of
the Organization of American States.
     Critics accused Aristide of running a corrupt administration during
his second term but he remains popular in the slums. Preval has gained the
support of many Aristide loyalists and is feared by the wealthy elite who
helped drive Aristide from power.