27611: (news) Chamberlain: Rivals say ex-president leads Haiti election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Former Haitian President Rene
Preval appeared to be heading for victory in the first election since
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted two years ago, according to rival
candidates and tallies from some polling stations.
     Haiti's electoral council had not released any results from Tuesday's
vote but counts from a handful of polling stations showed Preval with a
large lead in a ballot that could set a new test for U.S. foreign policy.
     International observers praised the high turnout but criticized
election officials for late poll openings and irregularities.
     Many of the poorest Haitians, from the slums where one-time Aristide
protege Preval had his strongest support, said they were sure their
candidate had won.
     Leslie Manigat, 75, whose short tenure as president in 1988 was ended
by a military putsch, said his polling station representatives had told him
he was in second place.
     "We are cautious, we are waiting for results, but it is clear
according to reports coming from a lot of places that Preval has a
comfortable gap," Manigat told Reuters.
     Manigat, however, added that he believed he had done well and "so we
don't exclude the possibility of a run-off."
     Turneb Delpe, another of the 33 presidential candidates, said his
party's poll watchers were also reporting that Preval was ahead. "If Preval
won, he won," he said.
     Preval needs more than 50 percent to avoid a March 19 run-off.
Election authorities said they might publish a few results on Thursday but
more substantial returns were not likely until Friday night or Saturday.
     "Thousands of people went out to vote for Preval. Even if we know the
vote is secret, the important thing is they wanted to vote," Preval told
Radio France in a background interview also recorded by Reuters Television,
which he made clear was not in reaction to any results.
     "They wanted to say 'that's my right to vote'," he said.
     The 63-year-old agronomist, waiting in his hometown of Marmelade, said
he would only comment on official results.
     Partial results posted at a voting center near Cite Soleil, a
sprawling slum where Aristide was adored and Preval found strong support,
showed that Preval won 75 percent.
     Even at a couple of polling stations in Petionville, a suburb in the
hills above Port-au-Prince where many of Haiti's wealthy live, Preval won
well over half the vote.
     The United States pressured Aristide to leave after an armed revolt in
2004, accusing him of using thugs to enforce his rule. Now, after a chaotic
but mostly peaceful vote in the destitute and unstable Caribbean nation,
Washington may have to deal with his one-time ally, and another potential
champion of the poor.
     "We the Haitian people know who we voted for. I can tell you now our
president is Rene Preval," said Port-au-Prince resident Marc-Joel
Saint-Fleur, 36. "We are just asking the authorities to admit he is the one
we elected."
     Preval, 63, was president from 1996 to 2001, between the two terms of
the former Roman Catholic priest Aristide, accused of despotism and
corruption before he was pushed from office.
     Preval has distanced himself since from Aristide but not ruled out
allowing him to return from exile in South Africa. South Africa said it
would evaluate conditions after the election to see whether it was safe for
Aristide to return.
     At least four people died in election-day incidents but a feared burst
of violence did not materialize. A 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force is
patrolling Haiti.
     Johan Van Hecke, head of a European Union observer group, said the
election suffered from considerable shortcomings, but the enthusiastic
turnout should be praised.
     "Overall, the administration of the process could have been of a
higher standard," he told reporters, and urged authorities to improve their
performance. Some polling stations had opened hours late and some people
had difficulty voting.
     While a Preval victory was unlikely to please Washington, Harvard
University Haiti analyst Robert Rotberg said the United States had
essentially washed its hands of Haiti.
     "The U.S. is a very distracted key player," he said. "If Iraq and
Afghanistan weren't the big things on the block maybe the U.S. would focus
on Haiti a bit more but it's not going to do so if there's no mass boat
migration out of Haiti."