27704: (news) Chamberlain: Preval likely to face runoff in Haiti election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jim Loney and Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Former Haitian President
Rene Preval fell further below the 50 percent he needs to win outright as
the counting of ballots continued on Monday in an increasing tense
presidential election.
     Smoke from burning tires rose over the teeming capital from impromptu
barricades, the United Nations said, as suspicions spread among protesting
Preval supporters that the count was being manipulated to stop the one-time
ally of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from winning a first-round
victory.
     Like Aristide, Preval is viewed as a champion of the impoverished
Caribbean country's poor masses, but he is distrusted by the small and
wealthy elite.
     With 89.9 percent of ballots counted, Preval's share of the vote in
last Tuesday's largely peaceful but chaotic election had slipped to 48.7
percent by Monday morning, the Provisional Electoral Council said on its
Web site.
     When initial results were announced several days ago, Preval held 61
percent of the vote, comfortably over the 50 percent plus one vote needed
to avoid a runoff on March 19.
     Another ex-president, Leslie Manigat, had 11.84 percent percent and
the main candidate for the business elite, industrialist Charles Baker, was
at 7.9 percent.
     Thousands of protesters marched in the capital on Sunday demanding
Preval be named president, and more large demonstrations were possible on
Monday.
     Preval himself complained that a computer-generated graphic on the
Provisional Electoral Council's Web site had him at 52 percent of the vote
at the time the director-general of the council was telling the media that
Preval only had 49 percent.
     "Forty-nine percent, I don't pass. Fifty percent, I pass," Preval said
on Sunday in his mountain hometown of Marmelade.
     Two of the nine electoral council members, Pierre Richard Duchemin and
Patrick Fequiere, also remarked on the discrepancy and said the vote
tabulation was being manipulated.
     The council's director-general, Jacques Bernard, denied the
allegations and dismissed rumors he had been bribed.
     The election was initially praised by international observers for
being surprisingly peaceful. Haiti's short history of democracy since it
flung off the dictatorship of the Duvalier family has been turbulent.
     Aristide was ousted by an armed revolt in February 2004 and Washington
has urged Preval, if elected, not to allow the former Roman Catholic priest
to return from exile. Once viewed as a champion of Haiti's democracy, he
faced rising accusations of corruption and despotism.
     Observers have said a runoff could change the dynamic of the election
because some of the candidates who oppose Preval have agreed to rally
behind the second-place candidate.