Results in Haiti point to a likely runoff
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - In results that critics slammed
as fraudulent, Ren� Pr�val, a former president and champion of the poor who is
the front-runner in key presidential elections here, appeared last night to
have lost the majority he needs to avoid a runoff with his closest rival.
Thousands of enraged, slum-dwelling Pr�val supporters took to the streets
of this capital city to blow horns and bang drums in protest as they shouted,
"Pr�val on the first round!" Two members of the provisional electoral council
overseeing the count from Tuesday's vote said they believed the results were
being manipulated.
"From the beginning, Jacques Bernard was not interested in a first-round
victory," renegade council member Patrick Fequi�re told Haitian television,
referring to the council's director general. Earlier yesterday, Fequi�re said
he believed Pr�val had received more than 50 percent of the vote.
Pierre Richard Duchemin, another electoral council member, told reporters
he thought some other council members had "manipulated" the tally and called
for an independent investigation.
A few days ago Pr�val, 63, was leading with nearly two-thirds of ballots in
early returns, raising expectations of a first-round victory. The voting had
been hailed as a landmark step toward planting democracy in the hemisphere's
poorest and most troubled nation.
The electoral council abruptly postponed a news conference at a posh hotel
to announce a final tally last night after protesters amassed outside. Rumors
swirled that Bernard would say Pr�val had 49 percent of the vote, the same lead
he'd shown with three-fourths of ballots counted yesterday morning.
Speaking to reporters yesterday outside his remote mountain hometown
Marmelade, Pr�val said of that result, "It's magouy," using a Haitian-Creole
word for "dirty tricks." A scientific sampling of ballots by a Haitian
observation group overseen by the National Endowment for Democracy, a
U.S.-funded agency, had shown Pr�val winning outright in the first round with
54 percent, according to international election sources.
With United Nations peacekeepers standing by, some protesters threatened
violence unless there was an immediate recount.
"If they push us too hard, we'll go back to 1804," vowed James Charles, 22,
an unemployed resident of Bel Aire, a Pr�val stronghold. He was referring to a
bloody revolt in which slaves ousted French colonists to the battle cry of
"Burn down their houses and cut off their heads!"
Pr�val, a former bakery owner, was president from 1996 to 2001. His closest
rival, according to yesterday morning's results, was Leslie Manigat, who
briefly served as president in 1988 after being elected in a vote rigged by the
military. That tally showed Manigat with 11.7 percent of the vote.
The two candidates will face off March 19 unless there is a recount or the
country dissolves into violence, a serious risk in a nation that has been
convulsed by 35 coups since independence.
"We've got many days between now and March 19 when we might expect activity
among spoilers" from either side, said UN Commissioner R. Graham Muir, who
heads the civilian police component of a 9,300-strong UN peacekeeping force
that is struggling to keep order since armed rebels forced out leftist
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide two years ago.
Aristide was once Pr�val's mentor, but Pr�val has in recent years distanced
himself from Aristide, who became mired in corruption scandals.
UN mission spokesman David Wimhurt said the mission had seen "evidence of
incompetence but not tampering."
However, Wimhurst confirmed that a few days ago UN workers removed the
doors from the central vote-tallying center here so that electoral council
lawyers could not "go and hide behind closed doors with stacks of ballots."
Wimhurst emphasized that "there is no indication the lawyers were tinkering
with anything."
