27674: Craig (news) NYT: As Haiti's Votes Are Tallied, a Fragile Peace Breaks Out (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig


February 12, 2006
As Haiti's Votes Are Tallied, a Fragile Peace Breaks Out
By GINGER THOMPSON

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 11 — The national elections, so long in coming, 
seem to have brought a fragile peace to the most troubled country in the 
hemisphere. Partial results gave a wide lead to René Préval, a former president 
who is considered a protégé to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. 
However, it remained unclear whether he would win the more than 50 percent of 
the vote to avoid a runoff.

With votes from 72 percent of the polling places counted, election authorities 
reported last night, Mr. Préval had won 49.6 percent of the vote, compared with 
11.6 percent for Leslie Manigat, who held the presidency for five months in 
1988 but was ousted by the military, and 8.1 percent for Charles Baker, a 
wealthy garment-factory owner. The rest of the results were expected to be 
available at noon on Sunday.

No matter what the outcome, the elections have been a major accomplishment, 
without the fraud and bloodshed of this country's previous political contests.

Much of the political hostilities stirred by activists among the poor and 
leaders of the business elite have been drowned out by the nation's pride in 
pulling off an election that started out shaky but ended with heavy, some say 
historic, voter turnout, and without a single serious incident of political 
violence.

As the nation waited for final results, there were scattered apprehensions 
about what was perceived as the probable victory of Mr. Préval, a man so 
closely linked to Mr. Aristide, who was forced from power by an uprising two 
years ago and lives in exile in South Africa.

Mr. Préval has won support from the densely populated slums that were Mr. 
Aristide's strongholds. Before the vote, crowds of demonstrators said they 
supported Mr. Préval in part because they hoped he would bring Mr. Aristide 
back home.

Opponents of Mr. Préval dread that possibility. They worry that Mr. Préval will 
serve as Mr. Aristide's puppet, a suspicion that tarnished Mr. Préval's record 
as president from 1996 to 2000. Others worry that whether or not Mr. Aristide 
comes back, Mr. Préval will govern by his example.

Nicole Magloire, who fled the country during the 30-year Duvalier dictatorship 
and supported Mr. Aristide in the celebrated elections that brought him to 
power in 1990, said that in all the years she had known Mr. Préval, he had been 
a loyal ally of Mr. Aristide's.

"Neither was he perceived as a militant, nor as a man with great personal 
ambition," Ms. Magloire said, in an interview on her elegant terrace, enclosed 
by soaring stalks of live bamboo. "He was content to serve the needs of Mr. 
Aristide, when he was prime minister, and it was the same when he was 
president."

"Now we want to know, is he running to be a puppet, or does he have his own 
agenda?" she continued.

Still, patience and confidence in the process seem to prevail over the 
conspiracy theories that typically dominate political discourse here. The 
kidnappings and gunfights that had become a terrifying fact of daily life were 
rare last week.

David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the United Nations Stabilization Mission, 
offered some statistics. Troops posted in and around Cité Soleil, a violent 
slum here in the capital, fired fewer than 700 rounds this week, compared with 
4,000 rounds the week before, he said. There were only four kidnappings this 
week, he said, half the daily average just two weeks ago.

There were other signs, as well. A man said to be a gang member in Cité Soleil 
talked Friday of being ready to lay down his weapons. Bishop Desmond Tutu 
arrived Saturday from South Africa to offer a Mass and urge this country to 
commit itself to national reconciliation.

The burden of life in shantytowns that reek of raw sewage was lifted by the 
anticipation of a clean, transparent transition. At a rally on Saturday of 
about 300 people who gathered in Cité Soleil and marched to the presidential 
palace, there were more glimmers of hope than pessimism about the future.

There was hope, too, in more prosperous places.

"After the elections, people know that the way to choose a leader is by the 
ballot, and the way to remove a leader is to vote against him," Pavel 
Desrosier, a 29-year-old doctor, said earlier this week as he drove in 
Pétionville, a hillside town above Port-au-Prince. "For us, it was a big step 
toward democracy."

Mr. Préval waited for the results at his father's hometown, Marmelade, a lush 
mountain village of some 10,000 people. Built around a plaza draped with laurel 
and bougainvillea, where children do their homework at a computer center in the 
afternoons and play in classical concerts on Sundays, Marmelade seems a world 
away from the poverty and political upheaval that has pushed Haiti close to 
collapse.

For Mr. Préval, Marmelade has been a laboratory for the social programs he was 
unable to carry out during his presidency, his friends said. An agronomist, he 
won multimillion-dollar grants from Taiwan to begin farming cooperatives and to 
open small factories that produce orange juice and bamboo furniture. He brought 
doctors and teachers from Cuba to open clinics and teach music.

But Marmelade was also a kind of refuge. During an interview there on Monday, 
Mr. Préval, 63, looked the image of serenity; sipping Scotch on a breezy 
veranda — his feet up, his work boots untied before taking an afternoon nap. 
"There will be no violence," Mr. Préval said, when asked what he would do if 
clashes occurred after the first round of elections. "Why would there be 
violence? If I win, the people will be happy."

He raised the question that has hounded his campaign before the reporters. "You 
want to know if I am going to bring back Aristide?" he joked. He then promptly 
ducked it, saying the Constitution does not require any Haitian to live in 
exile for life and that returning to Haiti was up to Mr. Aristide.

Political analysts have said ambiguity has been the genius of Mr. Préval's 
campaign. He began his campaign by showing up at the electoral offices on the 
last day for candidates to register, and delivered his application without 
making a statement to the news media. He refused requests for interviews and 
debates. He put off most campaign appearances until the final month.

The silence in the campaign's early weeks allowed him to consolidate the 
support of the masses of people who see him as another Aristide, the analysts 
said. It also allowed him to send equally cryptic signals to the well-to-do 
sectors of society that he was something different.

Mr. Préval did not campaign as the candidate of Mr. Aristide's Lavalas Party, 
but started his own ticket called Lespwa — Creole for hope. His advisers 
included business leaders and technocrats with no allegiance to Mr. Aristide. 
His campaign was financed by wealthy donors.

Opponents tried to attack Mr. Préval's vagueness, saying it not only masked a 
lack of a clear vision for how to lift Haiti out of ruin but also allowed him 
to avoid answering allegations of corruption and political assassinations 
against Mr. Aristide's government. The two were once so closely tied that a 
slogan from the 1995 election said they were twins.

"Préval's biggest fans are drug dealers," said Jean Esnold, 47, an 
administrator at the state insurance agency.

Others have said the two political leaders are not twins at all. Mr. Préval's 
political style seems the polar opposite of Mr. Aristide's. While Mr. Aristide 
delivered speeches with the power of a thunderstorm, and reveled in 
confrontation, Mr. Préval seems repulsed by the spotlight and prefers to duck a 
fight.

Brian Concannon, the director for the Institute for Justice and Democracy, said 
Mr. Préval's low-key approach was the key to his becoming the only president in 
recent history to finish his five-year term and peacefully hand over power.

Jocelyn McCalla, of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, in an telephone 
interview from New York, said that approach was the reason Mr. Préval was never 
able to get out of Mr. Aristide's shadow.

Kesner F. Pharel, an economist and the host of a popular radio program, said: 
"I don't think Préval loves power like Aristide. Aristide leads by controlling 
people. Préval can manipulate people without saying anything."

When asked whether he thought Mr. Préval would invite Mr. Aristide back to 
Haiti, Mr. Pharel raised comparisons to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. "I 
don't think Préval will have the power to challenge the international 
community. He will not be Chávez, with a lot of oil money."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/international/americas/12haiti.html