27617: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHAEL NORTON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 9 (AP) -- Rene Preval took a strong lead Thursday in
Haiti's presidential election with the release of the first partial
official returns giving him a majority of the votes counted so far.
   Preval, a former president seen as a champion of the poor, won 61.5
percent of 282,327 valid votes counted, Haiti's electoral council said. It
refused to say what percentage of the total votes cast these figures
represented. According to the United Nations, a majority of Haiti's 3.5
million eligible voters cast ballots.
   The council said of the next two highest vote getters, Leslie Manigat
had 13.4 percent and Charles Henri Baker had 6.1 percent.
   The announcement reinforced earlier comments before the release of the
election's first results, with a campaign official saying Preval had won
almost 68 percent of the votes that had been counted so far by
representatives of Preval's party.
   Preval is a former protege and one-time ally of ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Preval was characteristically low key as reports of
election returns landed at his party headquarters in Port-au-Prince, the
capital.
   Manigat early Thursday said early returns tallied by his party members
showed Preval has surged ahead.
   "There is a tiny chance that we will have a second round, but I fear
Preval has made a clean sweep of the votes," Manigat said.
   Standing on the porch of his family home in Marmelade, a rural northern
town, Preval said he was marking time and catching up on sleep until
official results are out. Election authorities said that might not be until
late Friday or Saturday.
   "My work is over," Preval told The Associated Press. "I'm waiting. It's
boring."
   His campaigning is over unless he fails to win a majority and must go to
a second-round election in March against the other top vote-getter. But
Preval faces monumental tasks if he wins the presidency of this
impoverished nation.
   Most Haitians can't read or write, and subsist on about a dollar a day.
A wave of kidnappings by heavily armed gangs has swept the capital. Amid
the insecurity, assembly plants are closing, causing the losses of
thousands of jobs. Donor nations are hesitant to contribute money because
of a legacy of government corruption.
   Preval's own tenure as president from 1996-2001 was less than stellar.
His efforts at agrarian reform failed because landless peasants who
received land couldn't live on the small amount they were given. He clashed
with parliament over the legitimacy of the legislators who won contested
elections. Human rights advocates accused him of interfering in the
judicial system and of politicizing the police force.
   But poor Haitians remember that Preval tried to help them. Even the
smaller efforts are remembered by those whose plight was ignored by a
series of governments and dictatorships.
   "He built the big marketplace downtown. He fixed it so that the vendors
could get out of the mud," said Yves Valea, a 70-year-old street sweeper.
   In Cite Soleil, a slum ruled by gangs that have grown stronger since a
rebellion ousted Aristide two years ago, a dozen jobless youths stood idle
outside decrepit storefronts plastered with Preval campaign posters. Some
of the young men shouted: "Long live Preval!"
   Israel Privil, a 40-year-old shoe repairman standing nearby, proudly
pointed to his ink-stained thumb, proof he had voted on Tuesday.
   "I voted for Preval because I was without hope," he said. "When Preval
was in power, there were agricultural jobs and more programs for the
peasants. We hope that if he becomes president he'll continue that work."
   Preval pictures himself as a reluctant candidate.
   When he stepped down after serving out his five-year term -- the only
Haitian president to complete his term in office -- Preval went to live in
his grandmother's house in Marmelade, where he devoted himself to local
development projects. He said he decided to run for the presidency after
1,000 peasants from all over the country came to see him in July and urged
him to run.
   Preval stood for years in the shadow of Aristide, his dominating
predecessor. Aristide, who referred to Preval as his "twin," was ousted
amid accusations he ordered gangsters to attack opponents and pocketed
millions of dollars.
   Preval made a point of saying in a recent interview that he has split
with Aristide, who is in exile in South Africa.
   "If I'm his 'twin,' we do not have the same mother," Preval told the AP.
Preval pointed out that nothing can legally prevent Aristide from returning
to Haiti, but added that he may have to face a trial.
   Preval would have a fresh start in relations with Washington, said
Robert Fatton, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.
   "When (Preval) was president, the U.S. did not necessarily think he was
a bad man, but they considered he had his hands tied up by Aristide,"
Fatton said in a telephone interview. "The U.S. now believes Preval is his
own man."
   ------
   Associated Press writers Stevenson Jacobs in Port-au-Prince and Joseph
B. Frazier in Marmelade contributed to this report.