Four dead, dozens injured as volatile Haiti elects new president




By Patrick Moser
AFP
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Petroleumworld.com 02 08 06

Four people were reported dead and dozens more were injured during presidential elections in volatile Haiti as angry crowds stormed voting centers that opened hours late.

But by mid-afternoon, fears that fresh political violence could mar the elections did not materialize.

Throngs of voters walked for hours in the absence of public transport, only to find massive lines outside voting centers.

Many said they would wait as long as it took to take part in the election that will replace Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's last elected president, who fled the country two years ago.

But hours long delays in opening numerous voting stations stirred widespread anger.

A policeman and a civilian died of gunshot wounds and four others were injured after a crowd rushed the gates of a voting center in the northwestern town of Gros Mornes, a local radio station reported.

In Port-au-Prince, one man was asphyxiated, another died of a heart attack and several more were wounded during similar stampedes, officials said.

Other people were reported wounded in other parts of the country, including a Chilean peacekeeper who was stabbed as he intervened in a fight outside a voting center.

Officials of the 9,500-strong UN military and police force in Haiti also said 22 people were wounded, four of them seriously, when the wall of a voting center collapsed in St Louis du Nord.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Haitian electoral authorities said that officials discovered a fake ballot box in a Port-au-Prince voting office.

Voting was relatively calm in the afternoon, but thousands of people still waited in line.

Polls were initially scheduled to close at 4 p.m. (2100 GMT) but electoral authorities said voting offices would remain open as long as people were waiting in line.

Preparations for the presidential and legislative elections already had been marked by a series of setbacks that caused the voting, first scheduled for November, to be postponed four times.

Despite the problems, international observers hailed the very fact that the voting could be held in a country terrorized by armed gangs, plagued by rampant poverty, and with a history of fraudulent elections and military coups.

UN forces kept a close watch on the election.

Armored personnel carriers were positioned in key areas of the capital, particularly near the notoriously violent Cite Soleil slum.

Thousands of people staged a protest march, decrying the delays and the fact that residents of Cite Soleil were forced to cast ballots in neighboring areas due to security concerns.

The protesters, brandishing their voter ID cards, also chanted the name of former president Rene Preval, the frontrunner in opinion polls.

In the dirt-poor slums of the capital that have been hotbeds of violence, many back Preval, 63, a former ally of Aristide.

Aristide was popular among impoverished Haitians, who make up 77 percent of the 8.5 million population.

"All here are voting for the same candidate," said Wishick Dagrin, 45, an office employee who stood in a long line outside a voting center for Cite Soleil.

Dozens of others immediately cheered, chanting "Preval, Preval."

Better-off Haitians seem to have little sympathy for Preval, and generally favor industrialist Charles Henry Baker, 50 or former president Leslie Manigat, 75.

"We should not be afraid of change, we should not return to the old ideas," said businessman Alex Turner, 53, who said he would vote for Baker, but would wait till the crowds thin out.

Opinion polls ahead of the election gave Preval a lead of at least 27 percent over Baker and Manigat.

Should no candidate obtain 50 percent of the vote, the frontrunner would face off in March with his closest rival.

Officials said it could take about three days to compile the results.

AFP 02/07/06

Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved

 

 

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