27615: (news) Chamberlain: Ex-president Preval leads Haiti election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Updates with early official vote count)

     By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Former Haitian President Rene
Preval appeared headed for an outright victory in the first election since
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted two years ago, according to rivals and
initial vote counts.
     Haiti's electoral council said one-time Aristide protege Preval was
leading with 61 percent in early vote counting in five departments,
including the most populous of Haiti's nine geographical regions.
     If correct, this would give Preval the simple majority needed to avoid
a second round presidential vote on March 19.
     Another former president, Leslie Manigat, trailed in second place with
13.4 percent, while industrialist Charles Baker, the main candidate of the
wealthy elite which opposed Aristide, had 6.1 percent.
     International observers praised the high turnout of a ballot that
could set a new test for U.S. foreign policy, but criticized election
officials for late poll openings and irregularities during Tuesday's
election.
     Many of the poorest Haitians, from the slums where both Aristide and
Preval found their strongest support, said they were sure their candidate
had won, and some of his rivals also conceded that he had a clear lead.
     "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," said Manigat, 75, whose short tenure as president in 1988
was ended by a military putsch.
     "If Preval won, he won," said Turneb Delpe, another of the 33
presidential candidates.
     Preval declined to discuss the results directly.
     "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.
     "They wanted to say 'that's my right to vote'," the 63-year-old
agronomist said.
     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."