27707: (news) Chamberlain: Preval likely to face runoff in Haiti election -- (adds details, quotes)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   (Adds details, quotes)

     By Jim Loney and Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Former President Rene Preval
fell further below the 50 percent he needed to win the Haitian election
outright as the counting of ballots continued on Monday and allegations of
manipulation mounted.
     Smoke from burning tires rose over the capital of Port-au-Prince from
impromptu barricades as suspicions spread among protesting Preval
supporters that the count was being tampered with 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 Caribbean
country's poor masses, most of whom live on $1 a day, but he is distrusted
by the small and wealthy elite.
     "We are going to put one million people in the streets in the coming
hours," said John Joel Joseph, a community leader in the Port-au-Prince
slums. "The people won't take this," he added, referring to the latest vote
count.
     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 slumdwellers poured out into the streets
again on Monday, vowing to shut down Port-au-Prince.
     "Nobody can block Preval. The will of the people is the will of God,"
said Marjorie St.-Fleur. "The people will prevail."
     Hundreds of heavily armed riot police formed a protective cordon
outside the headquarters of the Provisional Electoral Council. All along
the street in front, people wearing yellow Preval T-shirts chanted and
carried branches with three leaves, the symbol of Preval's political
coalition Lespwa, "The Hope."
     "You have seen nothing yet," said a man who identified himself as
Maurice. "We are going to show what the people are capable of."
     Preval himself complained that a computer-generated graphic on the
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
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 election was initially praised by international observers for
being 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,
Aristide faced rising accusations of corruption and despotism.




 REUTERS