Préval expected to be named winner of Haiti election

René Préval, a former president and bakery owner who is considered a champion of the poor, was expected to be declared the winner of tumultuous Feb. 7 presidential elections in an agreement brokered by foreign diplomats and this country's interim government, international election monitors and Pr�val aides said last night.

The announcement expected late last night or today could end days of turmoil over the election results that had threatened to throw this already volatile country into widespread violence.

"It's over," an aide to Pr�val told Newsday.

A flurry of negotiations on the vote came a day after thousands of charred, crumpled ballots were found Tuesday in a garbage dump on the edge of this capital city, adding weight to charges by Pr�val that the voting had been marred by fraud.

Many ballots at the dump were blank or were marked for Pr�val, who in the latest returns was just shy of the majority he would need to avoid a runoff. However, international election monitors said some may have been unused ballots that were fraudulently marked.

"This is sabotage on the part of provocateurs," said G�rard Le Chevalier, who heads a United Nations electoral team overseeing the vote. "But as to which side they are from, I don't know." Several international observers said the ballots might have been deliberately dumped where they would be found to incite violence among Pr�val supporters and thwart a transfer of power. Some observers didn't rule out the possibility that hard-core Pr�val supporters had planted the ballots to support their claims of fraud.

The stolen ballots - which were discovered Tuesday night and lay unguarded until mid-morning yesterday - spurred thousands of Pr�val supporters to paralyze Port-au-Prince for a third straight day of demonstrations. "Thieves and cheaters! Give us our president!" the protesters shouted, but they remained peaceful. A 9,300-member UN peacekeeping force has been struggling to maintain order in Haiti since armed rebels ousted leftist firebrand President Jean-Bertrand Aristide two years ago.

Pr�val, a former president and Aristide protege, initially was leading by nearly two-thirds of the vote in the 33-way race. He accused Haiti's electoral council of fraud, prompting a government pledge to investigate the vote count, after his lead slipped to 48.7 percent with 90 percent of votes counted. Leslie Manigat, another former president, was in second place with 11.8 percent.