A chaotic vote in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Enraged by long lines and severe disorganization, voters stormed polling centers and scuffled with United Nations peacekeepers yesterday in Haiti's first presidential election since an armed revolt two years ago pushed the country to the brink of collapse.

At least one person was asphyxiated and several others injured in stampedes in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where voters braved tear gas to rip down metal gates and pour into gigantic, dramatically understaffed polling stations, many of which opened several hours late. At a polling center in the northern town of Gros Morne, a Haitian policeman was reportedly killed by a mob after shooting dead a man waiting to vote.

Nevertheless, Haitian and international officials hailed the vote as a critical step in replanting democracy in the hemisphere's poorest and one of its most troubled nations. They noted that turnout was heavy, order slowly prevailed and balloting was free of the organized violence that has ravaged many elections here.

"The electoral process today was truly admirable," said Juan Gabriel Valdes, chief of the United Nations mission here. "Clearly there were difficulties... but this vote showed Haitian history is in the process of changing." A 9,300-strong UN peacekeeping force has struggled to contain political violence and kidnapping in this Maryland-size nation of 8 million since the armed ouster of firebrand President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.

Ren� Pr�val, 63, a onetime Aristide protege and president from 1996 to 2001, was widely expected to lead by a wide margin in the 33-way presidential race. But with the UN short on helicopters and many ballots being hauled down nearly impassable mountain paths by hundreds of mules, horses and donkeys, partial returns weren't expected until at least today. Though much of the countryside was calm yesterday, mayhem bubbled even at polling centers in wealthy neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. The chaos was greatest outside Cit� Soleil, a gang-ruled slum so volatile that election officials refused to place polling centers there, directing voters to instead cast ballots in industrial buildings on the periphery. Hundreds of angry Cit� Soleil residents marched through streets jammed with UN tanks and littered with burning mounds of garbage, waving their voting cards and pounding on empty ballot boxes to protest voting snafus.

"The bourgeoisie is trying to stage an electoral coup so the poor people can't vote their choice," screamed demonstrator Paul Ery, 45, who is jobless, as are most Cit� Soleil residents.

Ery warned that protesters "will take to the streets" in droves if the winner isn't Pr�val, a favored candidate of Haiti's impoverished majority.

Fanning the discontent, some Cit� Soleil gang members and community leaders roamed the neighborhood, erroneously telling residents and media that police had opened fire on voters.

Haitian authorities extended voting by several hours. In a desperate attempt to beef up several polling centers where ballots arrived hours late or workers had simply failed to show, officials began pulling volunteers from voting lines and giving them crash courses in helping to run polling booths.

Once doors opened, frantic voters pushed their way around tanks or under the legs of heavily armed UN soldiers in a rush to enter. Some then waited an hour or more in one line, only to be redirected to another line and then another - or to be told their names didn't appear on voting rolls.

"It's a sham," fumed Lithiane Miliace, 51, as she was turned away from a heavily guarded warehouse in Cit� Soleil that had opened three hours late with five election workers for 15,500 voters. Nearby, a frail 60-year-old woman sat with a dazed expression on a filthy cement floor, waiting in vain for someone to show her where she should vote.

An observer from the Alliance ticket, which is backing presidential candidate Evans Paul, a former Port-au-Prince mayor, grabbed a pregnant woman's pencil and tried to fill out her ballot. "I can't believe the chaos," said Jean Guito Duverneau, an exhausted observer for Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council.

Some international observers said yesterday's disarray proved the UN should have had more control in organizing the election. Haitian officials said they could have had more and smaller voting centers had the UN supplied more troops to guard them. Other top presidential contenders were Charles Henri Baker, 50, an assembly line factory owner, and Leslie Manigat, 75, who was elected in a rigged vote in 1988 and ousted by the army five months later.

If no candidate wins a majority, a second round of balloting will be held between the top two vote-getters March 19. Voters also are casting ballots for Haiti's 129-seat legislature.