27651: Lemieux-News-Preval Faces Demanding Agenda in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

JD Lemieux  lxhaiti@yahoo.com

Preval Faces Demanding Agenda in Haiti

Friday February 10, 2006 9:46 PM


AP Photo MLDL103

By ANDREW SELSKY

Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haiti's likely next
president, Rene Preval, faces a crowded and
demanding agenda if he is to have a chance of
resuscitating this Caribbean nation from dire
poverty.

He must move quickly to stem gang violence
causing manufacturers to close their doors,
eliminating thousands of jobs in the Western
Hemisphere's poorest nation. And he will have to
negotiate with parliament - his party is expected
to be weak - to name a Cabinet and prime minister
and pass legislation.

Election workers on Friday tallied votes three
days after a huge voter turnout almost
overwhelmed poll workers. Preval, a former
president who is highly popular among the poor,
has 61.5 percent of 282,327 valid votes counted
so far.

More than 1.75 million votes were cast, U.N.
officials said. Haiti's electoral commission said
there could be enough results tallied by late
Saturday to draw more solid conclusions about the
outcome.

A candidate running a distant third said he wants
the electoral council to investigate reports of
fraud, claiming some people voted several times.
International observers have praised Tuesday's
elections as free and fair.

If Preval wins, he will have to open negotiations
with opposition parties in parliament with little
support from his Lespwa Party, which means
``hope'' in Creole. The gang violence fueling job
losses must be stopped, and he must assure the
poor he will be effective.

``Everything in Haiti is broken and everything
needs fixing,'' said Robert Maguire, director of
the international affairs program at Trinity
University in Washington. ``One of the most
immediate tasks is reconciliation and dialogue
among Haitians.''

Preval, an agronomist, has not announced any
specific plans for addressing Haiti's problems,
beyond pledging to improve security and create
jobs - the same promises made by all the major
candidates in the election.

Preval's tenure as president from 1996-2001 was
less than stellar. His efforts at agrarian reform
failed because poor people were not given enough
land to live on. And human rights advocates
accused him of interfering in the judicial system
and of politicizing the police force.

Haiti has been without an elected leadership and
has been descending into anarchy since President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a bloody
rebellion two years ago. The voter turnout showed
Haitians long for stability.

Preval, a 63-year-old former Aristide protege,
has refrained from declaring victory, but
indicated he would have an unconventional style.

``Don't ask me to wear a tie,'' he told reporters
Friday in his home village of Marmelade. He also
recalled his youthful days as an anarchist.

``I still am,'' he quipped, adding that he is a
nonviolent one who believes power should flow
from government to the people.

Preval must help bring together Haiti's polarized
society that is split between the few rich and
the majority poor, experts say.

His honeymoon period is apt to be short among
those who live in the sprawling slums, where a
lack of opportunity has steered young men into
gangs that have battled U.N. peacekeepers and
kidnapped hundreds of people for ransom.

``The window will probably not be open too
long,'' Maguire said. ``He will have to show some
improvement in their lives. And he will need
partnerships of Haitians with resources to do
this.''

Since wealthier Haitians have been among the
kidnap victims, ``it's in their interest
ultimately to become proactive in trying to
address the problems of Haiti's poor,'' Maguire
said in a telephone interview.

Election returns indicated Preval might win a
majority of the votes and avoid a March runoff.
The early returns had Leslie Manigat, a former
president, with 13 percent of the vote and
businessman Charles Henri Baker with 6 percent.

Baker claimed there was fraud.

``We're starting to hear that people voted five
times, 10 times, 20 times,'' Baker said. ``This
is a worry to us because we don't know if it
happened at one center, 10 centers ... or all
over the country.''

Officials at Haiti's electoral office weren't
immediately available for comment.

If Preval wins, it will be people like Baker - a
wealthy garment factory owner - he must try to
win over so Haiti charts a new course, Maguire
said.

``Preval is going to have to be bringing people
to the table and finding common ground to move
forward,'' he said. ``It is going to be quite a
challenge.''

---

Associated Press writer Joseph B. Frazier in
Marmelade contributed to this report.


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