28323: (news) Chamberlain: Haitians begin voting in critical legislative poll (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 21 (Reuters) - Haitians trickled to the
polls on Friday as voting began in parliamentary elections that will decide
if President-elect Rene Preval has enough support to govern the troubled
Caribbean nation.
     Polls opened on time at 6 a.m. (1000 GMT) in the capital,
Port-au-Prince, with election workers in place but only a few people there
to cast ballots.
     "We are waiting for the voters. Compared to the first round, things
are better organized," said Maxerne Senat, manager of a large polling
center in Port-au-Prince.
     Preval on Feb. 7 won Haiti's first presidential vote since former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in an armed revolt two years
ago, but he will need supporters in parliament, and an ally in the prime
minister that parliament will pick, in order to chart a course for the
country.
     Only two seats in the 99-seat Chamber of Deputies were decided in the
first round of the election in February, with the rest going to the second
round on Friday. All 30 Senate seats will also be decided in the runoff.
     Police said some candidates who lost or were disqualified in the first
round of voting planned to disrupt Friday's election. They and U.N.
peacekeepers prepared to safeguard the ballot.
     Under Haiti's constitution, the party holding at least half the seats
in parliament will pick the prime minister. Final results are not expected
until April 28, but no party has enough candidates in the runoff to win the
required majority.
     Preval, a champion of Haiti's poor masses who is to be sworn in on May
14, has urged candidates from rival parties to form a coalition around his
political platform "Lespwa," Creole for hope.
     Opponents, many representing the country's wealthy elite and business
class, have lobbied just as hard for candidates to join forces against
Preval, a former Aristide protege who served a previous term as president
from 1996 to 2001.
     Haiti's last parliamentary elections in 2000 were marred by a
vote-tallying dispute that was never resolved, leaving the legislative body
paralyzed. Discord over subsequent presidential elections helped to
undermine Aristide, once viewed as a champion of Haiti's fragile democracy
but accused in later years of corruption and despotism.
     The new government faces a daunting job of restoring stability to the
deeply poor nation, which has been plagued by political violence for most
of its 202-year history.
     Coups and corruption have stymied two decades of attempts at
democratic government that followed decades of dictatorship, and an
unelected interim government has ruled since Aristide was driven out in
2004.
     A U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country has urged Haiti's 3.5
million registered voters to cast ballots.
     But many voters complain that problems encountered in the chaotic
first round of balloting remain unsolved. Many said they would have to walk
miles (km) to polling stations. Those unsure where to vote were referred to
an elections Web site, but few Haitians have access to computers.