Preval
scores big election wins in Haitian capital: unofficial tally
AFP
By
Patrick Moser
AFP
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Petroleumworld.com
02 09 06
Former president Rene Preval scored major election victories in
several parts of the Haitian capital, according to unofficial
results posted Wednesday, one day after general elections in the
turmoil-torn country.
Preval scored more than 90 percent of the votes in a large center
where residents of the notorious Cite Soleil slum cast their ballots,
and unexpectedly garnered a strong majority in several voting
offices in wealthier neighborhoods.
At a school in the middle-class suburb of Petion-Ville, Preval
took 70 percent of the votes, according to results posted on the
walls. Electoral officials insist the results are not official
as they still have to be verified and officially tabulated.
Senatorial candidate Marylande Manigat, the wife of one of Preval's
main rivals, former president Leslie Manigat, said Preval had
a very strong lead in in Port-au-Prince and the capital's outlying
areas.
Preval, 63, once had close ties to Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's
last elected president, who resigned and fled the country with
US and French help on February 29, 2004 as insurgents closed in
on the capital.
A trained agronomist, Preval was president from 1996 to 2001 and
had served as prime minister under Aristide for seven months in
1991.
Like Aristide before him, he is often seen as a champion of the
poor who make up 77 percent of the 8.5 million population. He
draws little sympathy from business leaders, many of whom said
they favored Manigat or industrialist Charles Henry Baker, who
both trailed far behind Preval in voting centers of the capital
surveyed by AFP.
On Wednesday, members of the 9,500-strong UN military and police
force in Haiti escorted ballots to the heavily protected electronic
tabulation center where electoral officials immediately got to
work.
UN special envoy to Haiti Juan Gabriel Valdez and Jose Miguel
Insulza, the secretary general of the Organization of American
States, as well as electoral observers, kept an eye on the proceedings
at the tabulation office.
Many of the results from around the country were still en route
to the capital Wednesday, and some were carried by mule from mountainous,
hard-to-reach areas.
Further reflecting the difficulties in staging elections in a
country as poor as Haiti, much of the vote counting during the
night was done by candlelight. In some voting centers, the tallying
continued Wednesday morning.
Heavily guarded by members of the UN force, known as Minustah,
the election was free of a renewed explosion of political violence
many had feared in this volatile country.
But the voting was marked by stampedes that reportedly left four
people dead and several more wounded.
Throngs of people walked for hours in the absence of public transportation,
and in several cases stormed the gates of offices that opened
hours late.
Despite problems during the elections, which had been postponed
four times since November, international observers hailed the
fact that voting could be held in a country plagued by armed gangs
and rampant poverty, and with a history of fraudulent elections
and military coups.
"I am pleased that, compared to previous elections, yesterday
was remarkably free from violence and I applaud the Haitian people
for their commitment to restore democracy," said UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan.
He appealed to Haitians to respect the outcome of the vote, urging
them to "come together in a spirit of national reconciliation
and dialogue in order to build strong democratic institutions
and an inclusive governance system."
More than 3.5 million Haitians were registered to participate
in Tuesday's election that also renewed the 129-seat parliament.
AFP
02 08 06
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