Haiti's frontrunner rejects electoral results, calls for more
protests
By Patrick Moser
AFP
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Petroleumworld.com 02 15 06
Haiti's presidential frontrunner Rene Preval on Tuesday decried
"massive fraud or gross errors" in last week's vote,
which he insisted he won outright, and urged supporters to continue
protesting.
Preval, who was president from 1996 to 2001, dismissed partial
results that gave him a huge lead over his rivals but put him
short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round of voting.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday urged all Haitians to respect
the results of the February 7 presidential election, but Preval
said he had explained his position to UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan, who called him on Monday.
"We are convinced that massive fraud or gross errors soil
the electoral process," Preval told a news conference, saying
he would contest the results unless they are corrected.
"We are convinced that we will win in the first round,"
said Preval, who enjoys strong support among the millions of impoverished
Haitians.
"Today, we tell the Haitian people to continue demonstrating,
but in the respect of the rights of others," Preval said.
He urged protesters to remove barricades they had erected on Monday
and to demonstrate "in a legal and intelligent manner."
On Monday, demonstrators had taken over the streets of the capital
for the third consecutive day, blocking roads with car wrecks
and burning tires, protesting outside the electoral council's
offices and storming the gates of a luxury hotel, where some of
them took a dip in the pool.
Following the incursion into the Montana Hotel, management asked
authories to shut down the press center they had set up in a conference
hall to to announce the electoral results.
One Preval supporter was shot dead Monday following an incident
involving members of the 9,500-strong UN Stabilization Force in
Haiti (MINUSTAH.) A UN spokesman insisted the death occurred after
the departure of the troops, who only had fired warning shots
in the air.
Protesters demanded the final outcome of the election be announced
immediately, and insisted that Preval be declared president.
With 90 percent of the ballots counted, Preval had 48.7 percent
of the vote. His closest rival was Leslie Manigat, also a former
president, with 11.8 percent.
One week after the election, it was still unclear when the final
results would be announced. The slow vote count was further delayed
by the protests, as barricades prevented officials from reaching
the tabulation center, near the capital's international airport.
Foreign diplomats, UN officials and Haiti's interim President
Boniface Alexandre held talks with Preval on Monday, in a bid
to find a way to defuse the tension.
Manigat, for his part, said he had been asked whether he would
consider conceding defeat so the election need not go to a second
round. "I said no," he told AFP, declining to say who
approached him.
Officials and several of the candidates, as well as Washington
and Paris, urged Haitians to remain calm and respect the outcome
of the election when it is finally announced.
Massive protests two years ago turned into a popular uprising
that forced Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's last elected president,
to flee. Haiti has been rocked by turmoil since, but the violence
eased shortly before last week's elections.
Preval is a former ally of Aristide, in whose government he served
as prime minister in 1991. But his aides the two have no contact
with each other.
AFP
02/14/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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