28335: (news) Chamberlain: Confusion, low turnout mar Haiti legislatiive vote (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 21 (Reuters) - Confusion reigned at many
polling stations on Friday as fewer Haitians than hoped turned out to vote
in a parliamentary election that will decide if President-elect Rene Preval
has enough support to govern the troubled Caribbean nation.
     While election officials said they were pleased with the second-round
ballot, one man was shot dead in a fight with a relative who supported a
rival candidate, and two other election-related deaths were reported but
not confirmed.
     Elsewhere, scuffles forced police to shut down a handful of voting
sites long before polls officially closed at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT), and many
would-be voters were told they had gone to the wrong polling place and were
turned away.
     Turnout, estimated by European Union observers at between 15-20
percent, was lower than in the chaotic first round of voting in February,
when Preval won Haiti's first presidential election since former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in an armed revolt two years ago.
     "A 15-20 percent turnout is very low," European Parliament member
Johan Van Hecke told local radio.
     Preval will need supporters in parliament, and an ally in the prime
minister that parliament will pick, in order to chart a course, and the
one-time ally of Aristide's and champion of Haiti's poor masses had urged
his supporters to vote en masse.
     Only two parliamentary races were decided in the first round, leaving
97 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 30 in the Senate to be determined
in Friday's runoff.
     Polling stations were nearly empty at first in the capital
Port-au-Prince. By midday lines had grown but many people were told they
were in the wrong place and could not vote.
     "I came to vote here during the first round. Now they told me my name
is not on the list," said Monique Pean, 30.
     "I'm eligible, I want to vote!" shouted an angry 50-year-old man.
"I'll go wherever they want me to, but Lord, somebody needs to tell me
where to go."
     Max Mathurin, president of the Provisional Electoral Council, said the
authorities couldn't just let voters cast ballots wherever they wanted.
     "We are satisfied because we did everything we could to make sure
polling stations opened on time and voters did not have to wait too long to
vote," Mathurin told reporters.
     Haiti's last parliamentary elections in 2000 were tangled in a
vote-tallying dispute, paralyzing the legislative body. Discord over
subsequent presidential elections helped to undermine Aristide, once viewed
as a hero of Haiti's fragile democracy but later accused 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 and
corruption for most of its 202 years.
     U.N. troops in armored vehicles and police were out in force.
     Police arrested an election worker for electoral fraud in Carrefour
near Port-au-Prince. Three people were arrested in the southern town of
Port-Salut for threatening poll workers with guns, police spokesman Frantz
Leurebours said.
     In western Haiti, U.N. peacekeepers stopped protesters who were
cutting up a roadway to block traffic, Leurebours said.
     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 will be sworn in on May 14.