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From: Dan Craig


Getting elected may have been easy part for Préval
MARINA JIMÉNEZ
From Friday's Globe and Mail
POSTED AT 6:12 AM EST ON 17/02/06

For René Préval, who was finally declared Haiti's next president yesterday after claims of voting fraud, getting elected was the easy part.

Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council announced Mr. Préval's victory yesterday in a move aimed at averting massive social unrest after several street protests this week demanding he be declared the winner.

"We have won. Now we are going to fight for parliament," Mr. Préval told the Haitian Press Agency, referring to the fact that electoral results for the 129-member parliament have not yet been announced.

The 63-year-old agronomist remained secluded for the rest of the day at his sister's hilltop home outside the capital, while below in the streets throngs of cheering supporters danced and chanted, "Victory, victory."

Mr. Préval, a mild-mannered man who was once an ally of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now faces the difficult task of appeasing political opponents and bridging the gap between Haiti's many conflicting groups without alienating his support base, the same impoverished masses who support Mr. Aristide.

All of these challenges will be made doubly difficult in a polarized country with a "winner-takes-all" political culture and no tradition of bringing opposition faces into cabinet in the spirit of reconciliation.

"There is no tradition of compromise or an ability to work with the opposition in Haiti," said Carlo Dade, an adviser with the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, an Ottawa think-tank. "We need a government of national unity and the international community -- Brazil, the U.S., Canada -- must push this."

Mr. Préval's government will also be saddled from the start with accusations that his electoral victory was rigged, much as Mr. Aristide's second term as president was undermined by disputed Senate elections in 2000.

Mr. Préval was declared a winner nine days after the Feb. 7 vote, after his accusation that "massive fraud" -- including the discovery of marked ballots in a garbage dump -- had cost him a victory on the first round.

In the initial tally, 85,000 unmarked ballots were included in the total, lowering the final percentage allocated to each candidate, and costing Mr. Préval a victory as he had only 48.7 per cent of the vote.

To resolve the impasse, Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council distributed the 85,000 blanks proportionally among the 33 presidential candidates, pushing Mr. Préval's share of the vote to 50.9 per cent -- enough to avoid a second round.

Critics, including a United Nations official, have suggested that Mr. Préval's political enemies stuffed ballots boxes with blank votes as it is unlikely that Haitians who waited as long as six hours in the sun to vote would have cast blanks as a form of protest.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday defended the deal, which adhered to the Haitian constitution and was brokered by foreign diplomats, government officials and international observers.

However, Mr. Préval's leading rival, former president Leslie Manigat, denounced final election results as a "/coup d'état /through the ballots." Charles Baker, a businessman who ran a distant third, attracting support from the country's elite and some rural sectors, also questioned the electoral outcome.

The most pressing challenge for Mr. Préval will be to bring order and stability to the Western hemisphere's poorest country, which has been besieged by kidnappings and armed battles in slums where his supporters have clashed with UN troops sent to stabilize the country.

Many of Mr. Préval's supporters in shantytowns such as Cité Soleil have pressed for the return of Mr. Aristide, who was ousted Feb. 29, 2004, after a bloody uprising by thugs and ex-soldiers. While the two men were once close allies, Mr. Préval has tried to distance himself from the exiled leader.

"Préval is very much aware that Mr. Aristide's early return is unacceptable. It will bring chaos to Haiti," the political consultant in Port-au-Prince said.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail three days before the election, Mr. Préval said his priorities are to introduce free primary education, create jobs, encourage aid and investment and disarm gang members.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060217.wxhaiti17/BNStory/International/home