27827: Durban (news): NY Times - A Deal is Reached (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Posted by Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>:

February 16, 2006
A Deal Is Reached to Name a Victor in Haiti's Election
By GINGER THOMPSON
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 15 ? The front-runner in last week's
presidential election will be declared the winner as part of an
agreement by leaders of Haiti's interim government to retabulate the
votes, a high-ranking official of the Organization of American States
said Wednesday night.

The agreement, to be announced Thursday, is a result of negotiations by
the front-runner, René Préval, government officials, foreign diplomats
and international observers, including the Organization of American
States. Details were still being worked out, and a United Nations
official cautioned that the deal could still fall apart.

The official from the Organization of American States, who insisted on
anonymity because of the fragile nature of the agreement, said that
loopholes in Haitian electoral law allow the government to discard an
estimated 85,000 blank ballots included in the original tally. By
excluding them, Mr. Préval's lead would increase from 48.7 percent of
the votes to slightly more than 51 percent.

Under election rules, the winner needs 50 percent plus one vote to
avoid a run-off.

An adviser to Mr. Préval, who confirmed the agreement, said that
electoral authorities had indicated they began recovering a large
number of missing ballots that were believed destroyed or stolen, and
that those ballots, estimated at 8 percent of all ballots cast, were
overwhelmingly in Mr. Preval's favor.

Mr. Préval, 63, an agronomist, previously served as president from 1996
to 2001.

The agreement was forged after marathon negotiations among leaders of
Mr. Préval's Lespwa Party, the interim government, the Provisional
Electoral Council, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti,
the O.A.S. and ambassadors from the United States, France, Canada,
Brazil and Chile. The talks started Monday, after early tallies
indicated Mr. Préval would not win enough votes to avoid a runoff, and
his supporters paralyzed cities across the country with protests and
flaming barricades.

Mr. Préval, who had been waiting for election results in his hometown,
Marmelade, was rushed back to the capital on a United Nations
helicopter Monday afternoon. On Tuesday morning, he delivered an
address to the nation, charging that the tabulation had been rigged
against him and demanding that final results be withheld pending a
review.

Fritz Jean, a supporter to Mr. Preval and former president of the
Central Bank, "This is a political solution to a political problem that
was necessary because of the widespread fraud that threatened to
undermine the election and the will of the people."

"Those blank votes go beyond logical explanation," he said. "To believe
that people walked hours to vote, and then waited in line for hours to
cast blank ballots, it defies logic."

Voicing the sentiments of many people worrie(d) about the precarious
state of Haiti's government, he added: "The country could not have
withstood the pressure of waiting for a second round. We need to move
as quickly as possible to reconciliation."

Others, speaking before the agreement, saw it differently.

"All the efforts we made for a democratic transition could be lost,"
said a human rights advocate, Jean-Claude Bajeux. "We are going right
back to where we have always been where the crowds on the street, not
elections, have the last say.  We are close to losing an historic
opportunity."

The deal was worked out as allegations of irregularities grew.

On Tuesday night, dozens of boxes containing thousands of ballots were
found in a dump a few miles north of the capital.

Many of the ballots had not been marked. Some, though, had been marked
for Mr. Préval, leading organizers of his campaign to suggest they were
proof of an effort to steal victory from their candidate.

Opponents of Mr. Préval, along with several international election
observers, wondered though whether his campaign workers had planted the
boxes of ballots. They said it might be part of an effort to incite the
crowds of Préval supporters whose protests in recent days have
paralyzed cities across Haiti, using bullying to put him in power.

Whether the ballots were dumped or planted, the discovery added to
questions here and abroad about the credibility of elections considered
crucial to setting Haiti back on the road to democracy.

"Unthinkable! Unimaginable! Unbelievable!" said Charles-Poisset Romain,
a sociology professor and university rector who was one of the 33
candidates in last week's presidential race, referring to the discovery
at the dump in an address on national radio. "A speedy investigation
must be conducted."

Mr. Préval's nearest rival, Leslie Manigat, had less than 12 percent of
the vote.

But Mr. Préval's accusations of fraud halted the tabulation of votes
before it was finished.

Furthermore, though the Provisional Electoral Council vowed there had
been no manipulation or serious irregularities, the discovery at
Trutier struck a blow to the confidence in the election and to the
peace it had brought to this troubled nation.

John Manes, a lanky 30-year-old standing near the dump on Wednesday in
a Préval T-shirt and cap, said he had seen trucks entering the area the
day after the elections.

"Now they have to give Préval the power," he said, "because we have
solid evidence they stole our votes."

A 20-year-old man, who gave his name as Artiste Belecan, said, "It's a
terrible situation when people vote and then see their ballots for
Préval discarded."

Cilius Apolon, 33, walked over the discarded ballots on Wednesday,
saying: "I got up very early in the morning to vote last week. This
shows disrespect for the Haitian people."

International electoral officials said an estimated 8 percent of the
ballots cast were missing, at least half of them believed to be stolen
or destroyed. Another 7 percent were voided because they were
illegible.

But most of the challenges to the vote tally have focused on the
estimated 85,000 blank ballots, about 4 percent of the 2.2 million
votes cast.

According to Haitian electoral law, blank ballots are counted as part
of the total number of votes. If they were not counted, electoral
officials report, Mr. Préval would probably win more than 51 percent of
the completed votes.

International electoral officials acknowledged that poll workers could
have improperly recorded unused ballots as blank ballots. In at least
two polling places, said one such official, nearly 100 percent of the
ballots were recorded as blank.

But the international officials also said they suspected some cases of
fraud, saying they found it had hard to believe that peasant farmers in
rural areas would walk for hours, then stand in line for hours, to cast
blank ballots.

Brazil led a push by Latin American diplomats on Wednesday to discard
the blank ballots and declare Mr. Préval president, diplomats said.

In Brasília, the chief foreign relations adviser to President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva told reporters, "Considering the existing climate
in the country, that would be the best solution."

In Port-au-Prince, the Chilean ambassador, Marcel Young, agreed.

"Préval is the winner," Mr. Young said. "The blank votes create an
artificial result. Now it is up to Haiti to make a decision. But this
is not just a legal question. It's a political question. They must make
a decision for the good of the country."

Amy Bracken contributed reporting for this article.