27854: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti election seen as victory for Aristide

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Tom Brown

     MIAMI, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Rene Preval's election as Haiti's new
president is seen by some as a clear victory for Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
who many Haiti experts say was undermined by Washington before he was
toppled in an armed revolt two years ago.
     Preval was declared the winner of Haiti's presidential election on
Thursday, after an agreement between the U.S.-backed interim government and
election officials over disputed results that defused a potentially
explosive crisis over last week's vote.
     Washington welcomed Preval's victory, saying it hoped to help build a
new future in one of the world's most impoverished countries.
     "We are going to work with the Preval government. 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," she said at
a congressional budget hearing.
     Preval, a former president and one-time Aristide ally, is the latest
in a series of populist leaders in the Western Hemisphere -- elected since
Hugo Chavez won the presidency in Venezuela in 1998 -- who could pose a
challenge to U.S. policy.
     And despite Washington's public endorsement, his victory may not go
down well with the U.S. government.
     Along with polls pointing to a win by staunch leftist Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador when Mexico holds its presidential elections in July,
Preval's victory highlights a fading U.S. influence in Latin America and
the Caribbean, a region Washington once controlled like its personal
fiefdom, political analysts said.
     Larry Birns, who heads the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric
Affairs think tank, said the United States is more isolated in Latin
America than Cuba, a country it has tried to marginalize for more than 50
years.
     Birns called Preval's election "a putative victory for Aristide,"
since the new president shares many of Aristide's political philosophies
and beliefs, and said Preval represented "Aristidism without Aristide.'
     That is something the United States, along with France and Canada, had
very much wanted to avoid, according to Haiti experts.
     The problem is that populist appeals are a powerful force in places
like Haiti, where most people live on less than $2 a day. Preval found his
strongest voter support in the same slums that formed Aristide's power
base.
     "It's almost ridiculous to think that somebody could have won the
election that hadn't had something to do with Aristide," said Eduardo
Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean center at Florida
International University.
     Critics have described Aristide as a tyrant who relied on violent
street gangs to enforce his rule. But Gamarra said he was still a very
popular figure in Haiti.
     The irony, according to Gamarra, is that U.S. troops were sent into
Haiti when Aristide was deposed in a bloody rebellion in February 2004. Now
a man some see as Aristide's crony comes to power, not by bullets, but
through the ballot box.
     "We invaded to get him (Aristide) out. Now we've got the guy who
succeeded Aristide as the president," Gamarra said.
     Preval served as president from 1996 to 2001 and was Aristide's
hand-picked successor.
     Washington's overwhelming concern with Haiti is to maintain enough
stability to avoid a repeat of the mass 1990s exodus of boat people
triggered by death squads and a surge in political bloodletting in the
Caribbean nation.
     But setting the stage for possibly difficult ties with Preval,
Washington has already urged him to oppose any return by Aristide from his
exile in South Africa.
     Cuba is among those who have blamed the United States for the
"overthrow" of Aristide.
     "We hope he will be allowed to govern and that outside interference in
Haiti's internal affairs ceases," Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of Cuba's
National Assembly, said of Preval on Thursday.