27851: (news) Chamberlain: Preval made Haiti president, rivals enraged (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Haiti declared Rene Preval,
a one-time ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's next
president on Thursday after reaching a deal on vote fraud claims that
averted a feared outbreak of violence.
     Preval, a former president passionately supported by the Caribbean
country's poor but opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive
Aristide from power two years ago, claimed "massive fraud" in the Feb. 7
election had deprived him of a first-round victory in one of the world's
poorest countries.
     "We have won. Now we are going to fight for parliament," Preval told
the Haitian Press Agency. After that, he secluded himself in his sister's
hilltop house outside Port-au-Prince and aides said he was unlikely to make
any further comment.
     Jubilant supporters poured into the streets, dancing and chanting
"victory, victory," after the embattled Provisional Electoral Council
issued a statement on Haitian radio in the middle of the night announcing
the deal.
     Eight of the council's nine members signed the agreement.
     "Rene Preval has been declared the winner with 51 percent," electoral
council President Max Mathurin said in the statement, setting the country
of 8.5 million off on the next chapter in a turbulent political history
marked by instability, dictatorships and bloodshed.
     The United States -- the key foreign player in Haiti and accused of
undermining Aristide -- welcomed Preval's victory.
     "We want this government to succeed," said U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. "This is a chance for a country that has had too few
chances."
     Preval's leading rival in the election, former President Leslie
Manigat, however, angrily denounced what he called a "coup d'etat through
the ballots."
     Last week's election was the first since Aristide fled into exile in
2004, driven out by an armed revolt and international pressure after his
image as a hero of Haitian democracy was stained by accusations of
despotism and corruption.
     Preval's supporters warned they would not allow him to suffer the same
fate as Aristide, who was twice elected and twice ousted, first by a
military coup and then by the revolt.
     Preval, 63, was president from 1996 to 2001, between Aristide's two
terms, and is the only leader in Haiti's 202-year history to win a
democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand power to a
successor.
     "For us, Preval means hope, respect and progress," said Jonas Lundi,
28, as he celebrated in the Canape Vert district.
     Smiling Preval supporters clogged streets in the chaotic capital,
waved posters of their candidate, drove in ecstatic, honking convoys and
congregated near the National Palace, where Preval will take office on
March 29.
     Under the deal, the electoral council distributed 85,000 ballots that
were left blank proportionately among the 33 candidates, Mathurin said.
     The blanks, amounting to 4.7 percent of the total, had been included
in the total number of votes, in accordance with the law, reducing the
final percentage allocated to each candidate. That helped keep Preval's
share at 48.7 percent -- below the simple majority he needed to avoid a
March 19 runoff.
     But many Haitians suspected the blank votes had been stuffed into
ballot boxes to force Preval into a second round and outraged supporters on
Monday brought Port-au-Prince to a standstill, erecting roadblocks and
storming a luxury hotel.
     The agreement on blank ballots gave Preval 51.15 percent, with 96
percent of ballots counted, the council said.
     Manigat, who trailed far behind Preval at 11.8 percent, said the
declaration of Preval's victory was illegal.
     "We thought we were in a democratic process and everybody would
observe the rules," said industrialist Charles Baker, considered the main
candidate of the wealthy elite and a distant third with 7.9 percent of the
vote.
     Poor Haitians warned foes not to undermine Preval.
     "We have elected Preval for five years," said Jean-Marie Theodore, 25,
a student. "We won't accept that he misses one minute of his five-year
mandate."

  (Additional reporting by Michael Christie in Port-au-Prince, Saul Hudson
in Washington and Fiona Ortiz in Santiago)