27784: (news) Chamberlain: Preval claims vote fraud, burned ballots found

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Former Haitian President
Rene Preval said on Tuesday massive fraud had prevented him from winning a
first-round victory in last week's election but the government had agreed
to delay publishing the result while he gathered proof.
     A few hours after he spoke, hundreds and possibly thousands of burned
and still smoldering ballots, many cast a week ago for Preval, were found
on a Port-au-Prince garbage dump, outraging Preval supporters and setting
off demonstrations after nightfall.
     A one-time ally of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and opposed
by the wealthy elite who drove Aristide out two years ago. Preval called
earlier for his supporters to continue their protests but to tear down
barricades of smoking tires and rubble that had brought Port-au-Prince to a
standstill.
     "We are sure of having won in the first round," Preval said at his
sister's hilltop home on the outskirts of the Haitian capital, where his
angry supporters thronged through the streets on Monday, storming the
city's top luxury hotel.
     "We are convinced there was massive fraud and gross errors that
affected the process," he said in his first major comments since last
Tuesday's vote.
     The impoverished Caribbean nation of 8.5 million has been on
tenterhooks for a week amid concern that election officials were
manipulating the ballot, the first since Aristide fled into exile, to force
Preval into a March 19 runoff.
     Results, unchanged since Monday, gave Preval 48.7 percent of the vote
with 90 percent counted. He needs a simple majority to avoid a second
round.
     "If they publish these results as they are, we will contest them and
if Lespwa (Preval's political movement) contests them, the Haitian people
will contest them," Preval said.
     Members of the provisional electoral council said the demonstrations
and roadblocks that have afflicted Port-au-Prince since Sunday had
prevented ballot workers from completing the count anyway.
     Rosemond Pradel, secretary general of the council, promised an
investigation after charred ballot papers were found in a large state dump
in the capital.
     "That's absolutely unacceptable," said Pradel.
     He said securing the ballots after they had been cast was the
responsibility of the 9,000-strong U.N. force trying to keep the peace in
Haiti.
     U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst said ballots were supposed to have been
sealed in bags and placed in a container, protected by U.N. troops. "It's
not normal to have these ballots there."
     Wimhurst suggested the discarded ballots could have come from nine
polling stations outside Port-au-Prince ransacked during the election, with
the loss of around 35,000 votes.
     In the district of Truitier, where the burned ballots were found,
angry Preval supporters and local residents denounced what they saw as an
attempt to deny them a voice in Haiti's fractious and fragile democracy.
     "They took all Preval's ballots. They threw them away in order to
prevent the vote of the people from passing. That is a crime," said Rene
Monplaisir, an official in the Preval campaign.
     While many of Preval's presidential rivals have conceded he won an
easy victory, some, including third-placed industrialist Charles Baker,
considered the candidate of the wealthy elite, have vowed to join forces in
a second round.
     Ex-President Leslie Manigat was in second place with 11.8 percent and
Baker was third with 7.9 percent.
     Preval said his campaign had credible evidence the vote count had been
manipulated. He cited an independent tabulation by the National Democratic
Institute, a U.S. nonprofit group, which showed he had carried 54 percent
of the vote.





 REUTERS