27825: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By ANDREW SELSKY

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 15 (AP) -- A stinking, flyblown garbage dump, more
than two miles down a pitted dirt road from a highway, lies at the center
of the controversy over Haiti's presidential election.
   Thousands of ballots, official electoral bags and other materials from
the Feb. 7 elections have been found in the dump north of the capital.
   Some officials said the ballots may have been left there by someone
seeking to discredit the elections aimed at installing a new government in
the wake of a bloody rebellion that toppled President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in February 2004.
   But supporters of Rene Preval, who have taken to the streets to protest
alleged fraud they say is denying their candidate a first-round victory,
claim the dumped election materials is evidence. The discovery of the
dumped ballots fueled the protests after they were first announced on
Haitian TV Tuesday night.
   The interim government said an investigation has been launched.
   "We are looking closely at specimens of the ballots found at the dump,
to check whether these are real ballots," said Michel Brunache, chief of
staff to interim President Boniface Alexandre.
   Associated Press journalists saw thousands of ballots, some marked for
Preval, deep in the dump Wednesday, along with a vote tally sheet and four
bags meant to carry returns from the elections. Three of the bags were
signed by presidents of local election bureaus.
   The discovery troubled U.N. officials because the bags were not supposed
to be thrown out.
   "They're supposed to be kept," U.N. official Catherine Sung, an
electoral adviser who works at the main vote tabulation center, told the
AP.
   Shown photographs of the signed bags, Sung said they were meant to
contain annulled and blank votes. The journalists also saw a green tally
sheet of votes, but U.N. officials said that was not important because it
was a copy of the original given to political party representatives.
   With 90 percent of the returns counted, Preval -- an agronomist and
former president -- was just short of the majority needed for a first-round
victory. He claimed Tuesday that "massive fraud or gross errors" had been
committed and vowed to challenge the results if officials insist on holding
a March runoff.
   Preval backers said election officials were attempting to annul votes
for him to force a runoff. If some of the annulled ballots and the
corresponding bags have been discarded, it could skew any possible recount.
   Asked if it was important the bags be retained and not thrown out, Sung
said: "Yes, of course."
   U.N. police were dispatched to retrieve what they could from the site
after hundreds of people carried away some of the election materials,
strewn over at least two acres deep in the smoldering dump.
   Jean-Ricot Guerrier, who lives near the site, said the stuff was dropped
off by a truck the day after the election and that someone tried to burn
the material before rainfall put out the fire. Impoverished children
picking through the garbage found the ballots, he said.
   At the dump, Cilius Apolon, 33, walked over the discarded ballots and
past smashed white plastic ballot boxes.
   "I got up very early in the morning to vote last week," Apolon said.
"This shows disrespect for the Haitian people."
   Foreign envoys, meanwhile, were discussing a Brazilian plan to persuade
the other candidates to recognize a Preval victory and prevent a mass
uprising, according to Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign affairs adviser to
Brazil's president.
   Some 7,300 U.N. troops and 1,750 international police are in the country
under Brazilian command, helping maintain order. The U.N. mission replaced
a U.S.-led force that arrived after an uprising
   A popularly elected government with a clear mandate 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.
   Preval urged his followers Tuesday to continue protesting nonviolently.
Scattered demonstrations occurred Wednesday in Port-au-Prince, with
protesters waving Haitian flags and Preval posters.
   Haiti's interim government ordered the count suspended with 90 percent
of the votes tallied, pending a review of vote tally sheets by an
investigative commission. But Max Mathurin, the electoral council
president, said Wednesday that election workers were ignoring the
government order and continuing to tabulate results.
   "The government and the established commission can't under any
circumstances ask or order the cancellation of the operations," Mathurin
told Radio Metropole. Workers have completed 92 percent of the vote count,
he added, while refusing to release any more information. "When everything
is ready, we're going to publish the official results," he said.
   Mathurin denied that the electoral council had manipulated the vote
count. "We're working transparently. If Preval has 50 percent plus one
vote, he will be the president. If that's not the case, there will be a
second round."
   The electoral council's latest published results show Preval with 48.76
percent of the vote with 90 percent of ballots counted. In second place was
Leslie Manigat, also a former president, with 11.8 percent.
   ------
   Associated Press Writer Stevenson Jacobs contributed to this report.