#4899: Haiti's Election Results Official (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: nozier@tradewind.net

Wednesday August 16 11:18 PM ET Haiti's Election Results Official 
By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - President Rene Preval made the results
of Haiti's parliamentary elections official by publishing them
Wednesday,despite criticism from an international community that deems
the results questionable. The totals printed in the official government
publication Le Moniteur confirmed an overwhelming victory by the Lavalas
Family party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The party won
18 of 19 seats in the upper house and 72 of 82 in the lower house in
May, June, and July balloting, according to official results.The Lavalas
Family also won about 80 percent of Haiti's 133 city halls and a
majority of urban and rural local assemblies. Aristide is favored to win
presidential elections on Nov. 26.The European Union, the United States
and Canada have questioned the formula used to calculate winners of
races in the first round in May. They have threatened to withhold aid if
the results are not revised.The Organization of American States, which
monitored the elections, has said it believes some seats won in the
first round of voting should have gone to a run-off vote. OAS
Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria is to arrive in Haiti on Thursday to
meet with local officials about the results. Eight more senators' seats
will be up for election in November. An election for one seat in the
83-seat lower house was postponed.Haiti has been without a legislature
since January 1999, when Preval locked lawmakers out of parliament,
ending an 18-month power struggle with the former majority party over
tainted April 1997    elections.