27780: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 14 (AP) -- Leading presidential candidate Rene
Preval claimed Tuesday that "gross errors" and likely fraud marred the vote
that saw him fall just short of a first-round victory, and he said he would
contest the results.
   He also urged supporters to protest peacefully, a day after at least one
pro-Preval demonstrator was killed and followers elsewhere occupied a
hotel.
   White U.N. armored vehicles shoved aside roadblocks of junked cars, old
refrigerators and other debris blocking the streets of the capital Tuesday,
and most were clear by mid-afternoon. Businesses remained shuttered, but
street markets bustled with shoppers.
   Preval, a former protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who
enjoys wide support among the poor, called on followers to remove all
roadblocks so people can get to work.
   "I ask the Haitian people ... to be mature, to be responsible, to be
nonviolent," Preval told reporters while sitting on a couch on the lawn of
his gated home in the Petionville suburb.
   The most recent election results, which were posted on the electoral
council's Web site Monday afternoon, showed Preval had 48.76 percent of the
vote with 90 percent of ballots counted. He would need 50 percent plus one
vote from the Feb. 7 election to win outright and avoid a March runoff.
   "If they publish the results as they are now, we will oppose them, the
Haitian people will also oppose them, and there will be protests," Preval
said.
   "We have observed there have been gross errors and probably gigantic
fraud," he said, adding that official results "do not correspond with
reality."
   The constitution indicates a challenge would go to the Supreme Court,
but the interim government recently decreed that any complaints should go
to the electoral commission -- the same body issuing the results.
   U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst said no evidence of fraud was detected in
the elections. "If he believes there have been irregularities, he has the
right to request an investigation," Wimhurst told The Associated Press.
   Officials haven't said when they will release final results. The U.N.
said pro-Preval demonstrations were preventing election personnel from
going to work and many counting centers had closed because of security
concerns.
   The U.N. Security Council urged Haitians to respect election results and
refrain from violence, and it extended the U.N. peacekeeping mission in
Haiti for six months, until Aug. 15.
   Some 7,300 U.N. troops and 1,750 international police are in the country
under Brazilian command, helping national police maintain order. The U.N.
mission replaced a U.S.-led force that arrived after a three-week uprising
toppled Aristide in February 2004.
   A popularly elected government with a clear mandate from the voters is
seen as crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the
Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees
and factories have closed for lack of security.
   At least one protester was killed Monday in the Taberre neighborhood.
Witnesses said U.N. peacekeepers opened fire from a jeep. Wimhurst first
denied that peacekeepers fired any rounds, then later said they had fired
in the air and that someone else fired shots afterward in the same area.
Preval supporters also stormed into a luxury hotel in Petionville on
Monday.
   Preval, a former president, urged his supporters to "respect people's
belongings" and to be on guard against provocateurs who try to foment
violence.
   He met the top U.N. official in Haiti and ambassadors from the United
States, France, Canada and Brazil late Monday after coming to the capital
on a U.N. helicopter from his rural home in the north.
   A runoff election would pit Preval against second-place finisher Leslie
Manigat, also a former president, who received 11.8 percent of the vote,
according to preliminary results.
   Manigat's wife, Myrlande, declined to say whether anyone had approached
her husband about withdrawing. "We are not negotiating," she said in a
telephone interview. "Our position is to wait until the (electoral council)
releases the results."
   Of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 have been declared
invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval
supporters that polling officials were rigging the election.
   Four percent of the ballots were blank but were still added to the
total, making it harder for Preval to obtain the 50 percent plus one vote
needed.
   Jacques Bernard, director-general of the nine-member electoral council,
has denied that the council voided many votes for Preval.
   ------
   Associated Press writers Andrew Selsky in Port-au-Prince and Edith M.
Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.