27623: Durban (news): NY Times on election

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From this morning's NY Times, L Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com> posts:

Candidate of Haiti's Poor Leads in Early Tally With 61% of Vote
By GINGER THOMPSON
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 9 ? Unofficial electoral results that had
been carried in by mules, trucks and helicopters from polling centers
across the country appeared Thursday to give an early lead to René
Préval, a former president considered a champion of the poor masses and
a thorn in the side of the elite.

The Provisional Electoral Council announced Thursday night that Mr.
Préval had won 61 percent of the 15 percent of the votes tabulated from
the election Tuesday, including 67 percent of the votes counted so far
in the department that includes Port-au-Prince.

While several of his opponents quietly began to move toward conceding,
others cautioned that it was still too early to declare a winner, and
the political hostilities that have kept this country near the brink of
anarchy lingered in the air.

Heavily armed gang members who control some of the slums that are Mr.
Préval's political strongholds have threatened violence if he is not
declared the winner with more than 50 percent of the votes, thereby
avoiding a runoff election. It was also from the slums that Mr.
Préval's mentor, the former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, drew his
political strength.

A spokesman for Charles-Henry Baker, a wealthy factory owner considered
the candidate of the tiny elite, said his campaign had begun preparing
charges of fraud to try to stop Mr. Préval from winning power.

As Haiti, a country of 8.5 million people, braced for final results,
which are not expected until this weekend, it was not easy to tell
whether the nation was on the verge of its first real steps out of
anarchy, or set to plunge into another cycle of political upheaval.

Ending the political fighting between the rich and the poor must be the
first of a long list of priorities for its next president. And the
question looming over Mr. Préval is whether a man whose previous term
as president was overshadowed by Mr. Aristide, a polarizing political
leader, is up to the task.

"Préval has to turn history upside down in Haiti," said Mark Schneider,
of the International Crisis Group, a nonpartisan organization focusing
on conflict resolution. "For decades, if not centuries, Haitian
politics have been ruled by a take-no-prisoners mentality. The
determination of the Haitian people to use the ballot to change their
history became evident after the record turnout Tuesday. And if the
early reports of a first round win turn out to be accurate, I would
hope that René Préval knows that he cannot govern alone."

In an interview last month at his sister's house in Port-au-Prince, and
then another this week in Marmelade, his father's hometown, Mr. Préval,
a former bakery owner, said his priority would be to provide relief to
the two-thirds of the population living in extreme poverty. His plans
include what he described as a "universal public school program," and
at least one free meal a day for poor children.

Mr. Préval also said he would investigate the cases of hundreds of
prisoners who claim they are being held for political purposes, and
would negotiate with gangs, rather than using only force against them,
to end violence and lawlessness in slums like Cité Soleil.

"What do you prefer?" he asked. "An amnesty, or for people to keep
dying?"

Mr. Préval said he that would recruit Haitian professionals overseas to
help rebuild the government, and hinted that he had offered a job in
his administration to a former presidential candidate, Dumarsais
Siméus, a Haitian-born business magnate who was forced out of the race
because he is an American citizen.

A chief objective of Mr. Préval's government, one of his advisers said,
would be to attract more investment from the United States. In the last
decade, the adviser said, United States investment in Haiti was less
than $10 million, the amount invested in a single year in the
neighboring Dominican Republic.

But Mr. Préval also suggested that he would reach out to his opponents
among the middle and upper classes. He said that much of his campaign
had been financed by the elite, and that he would appoint a prime
minister from the political party that wins control of the parliament,
which is highly unlikely to be his own.

"People know that I don't like to speak of myself," said Mr. Préval,
63. "But I think the first thing that people appreciate about me is
that Préval has not stolen. Préval is not an assassin. Préval respects
freedom. Préval is frank and honest.

"He says what he can and cannot do, and he doesn't make promises he
cannot keep."

After graduating from college in Belgium, he lived in New York. "I
always told my father I worked on Wall Street," Mr. Préval said of
those years. "But I never told him I was a messenger. I used to think
how my father would kill me if he saw me sweeping floors and making
coffee."

By 1990, Mr. Préval had returned to Haiti and had opened a bakery that
supplied bread to an orphanage run by Mr. Aristide, who was then a
priest. When Mr. Aristide rose to power as Haiti's first elected
president, he appointed Mr. Préval prime minister.

Haitians called the men the Twins. In voodoo, twins are believed to
have an eternal bond and magical powers. And after Mr. Aristide was
overthrown by a military coup, Mr. Préval went with him into exile.

When Mr. Aristide was restored to power in 1994, Mr. Préval returned
with him. And with Mr. Aristide's blessing a year later, Mr. Préval was
elected president a year later.

He was credited with supporting important human rights investigations
that led to trials and convictions against high-ranking police and
military officers involved in political assassinations.

But his government was crippled by a Parliament dominated by his
opponents and meddling by his old ally, Mr. Aristide. And critics said
his greatest single achievement was becoming the only president, in a
country roiled by a long history of military coups, to finish a full
term in office and peacefully turn over power.

Political observers said Mr. Préval, who served as president from 1996
to 2000, was not able to keep many promises during his last term in
office.

A slight, unassuming, plain-talking agronomist, Mr. Préval had never
been a high achiever before he stumbled into political power in the
shadows of the extremely charismatic Mr. Aristide. And until now he had
essentially stayed there.

His successor was Mr. Aristide. But by then, aides to Mr. Préval said,
relations between the two had been severely strained, and Mr. Préval
retired to his father's hometown, near the north coast.

Then two years ago, another armed uprising, along with pressure by the
United States, forced Mr. Aristide from power and pushed Haiti, the
hemisphere's poorest country, close to collapse.

Political observers have said Mr. Préval was sought out by the United
States and governments leading the United Nations Stabilization Mission
struggling to restore order.

"I think Préval wants to show he's his own man, that he can leave his
own legacy, and solve some of this country's worst problems," said Mr.
Schneider, of the International Crisis Group. "Hopefully his opposition
will recognize they don't have an option, for the sake of the country,
but to cooperate."