27632: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHAEL NORTON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 10 (AP) -- Rene Preval held a commanding early lead
in Haiti's presidential elections Friday, with a majority of the first
votes counted going to the former protege of deposed President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   Preval, a former president seen as a champion of the poor, had 61.5
percent of 282,327 valid votes counted. Former President Leslie Manigat had
13.4 percent and businessman Charles Henri Baker 6.1 percent, according to
figures released Thursday by election officials.
   The electoral council did not say what percentage of the total votes
cast in Tuesday's election the figures represented. According to the United
Nations, a majority of Haiti's 3.5 million eligible voters cast ballots.
   Baker said he was asking the electoral council to investigate reports of
fraud.
   "We're starting to hear that people voted five times, 10 times, 20
times," Baker told The Associated Press. "This is a worry to us because we
don't know if it happened at one center, 10 centers ... or all over the
country."
   Baker said he didn't know whether the alleged fraud affected the overall
outcome, but he said he was "flabbergasted" that international observers
have widely praised Tuesday's elections as free and fair.
   Officials at Haiti's electoral office weren't immediately available for
comment.
   Election authorities said it might be Saturday before enough ballots are
counted to draw conclusions about the race.
   Manigat, however, said early returns tallied by his party members showed
Preval could win a majority of votes, avoiding the need for a runoff.
   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.
   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.
   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. "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.