Calmer Haiti awaits election results

Stevenson Jacobs

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — U.N. armored personnel carriers cleared roadblocks from the capital Tuesday, a day after angry supporters of leading presidential candidate Rene Preval stormed a luxury hotel, accusing election officials of manipulating vote counts to deprive him of a first-round victory.

Haitians awaited both the final results of the election held a week ago — the first since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a rebellion two years ago — and an official statement from Preval, who had just under 49 percent of the vote with most ballots counted.

It was uncertain, however, whether he would get the 50 percent total needed to win outright and avoid a second round of voting and no new results have been posted for more than 20 hours.

Preval, who enjoys wide support among Haiti’s poor majority, arrived in the capital late Monday aboard a U.N. helicopter from his home in the country’s north.

“We have questions about the electoral process,” he told reporters after meeting with the top U.N. official in Haiti and ambassadors from the United States, France, Canada and Brazil. “We want to see how we can save the process.”

Preval also planned to meet with Haiti’s interim prime minister and president. Special U.N. envoy to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, said Preval would ask the Haitian people to be calm and patient.

The wife of candidate Leslie Manigat, who came in second according to preliminary results, declined to say whether anyone had approached her husband about withdrawing.

“We are not negotiating,” Myrlande Manigat told The Associated Press Tuesday in a telephone interview. “Our position is to wait until the (electoral council) releases the results.”

A popularly elected government with a clear mandate from the voters is seen as crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. In the two years since Aristide’s ouster, gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees and factories have closed for lack of security.

Monday’s violence in Port-au-Prince left at least one protester dead as barricades of blazing tires sent plumes of black smoke into the sky.

U.N armored personnel carriers shoved aside junked cars, old refrigerators and other debris that had been used to make the roadblocks as demonstrators paralyzed the capital on Monday.

In the middle-class Tabarre neighborhood, Associated Press journalists saw a man lying in the street, blood soaking the picture of Preval on his T-shirt. Dozens of witnesses said Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers opened fire from a jeep, killing two people and wounding four.

U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst first denied that peacekeepers fired any rounds, then later said they had fired in the air and that someone else fired shots afterward in the same area.

Also Monday, thousands of screaming protesters poured into the Montana Hotel in the Petionville neighborhood overlooking Port-au-Prince, where election officials had been announcing results. Blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers armed with assault rifles looked on from the grounds and the roof. No violence was reported.

Protesters waving Preval campaign posters and tree branches jumped up and down in unison, chanting: “Now is the time! Now is the time!” Dozens somersaulted fully clothed into the pool — a rare treat in a country where most people lack running water.

Protesters stretched out on chaise lounges and ran up and down the hotel stairs past rooms costing $200 and up a night.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, who is visiting Haiti, came out of his suite to appeal for calm. One of his security agents said the South African archbishop had refused to be evacuated by the helicopter plucking guests from the roof.

With about 90 percent of the vote counted from the Feb. 7 vote, Preval, a former president and Aristide ally, was leading with 48.7 percent of the vote, Haiti’s electoral council said on its Web site. His nearest opponent was Manigat, another former president, who had 11.8 percent.

Of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters that polling officials were rigging the election.

Another 4 percent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the total, making it harder for Preval to obtain the majority needed to win outright.

Jacques Bernard, director-general of the nine-member electoral council, denied accusations that the council voided many votes for Preval.

Council member Pierre Richard Duchemin said he was being denied access to the tabulation process.

“According to me, there’s a certain level of manipulation,” Duchemin said, adding that “there is an effort to stop people from asking questions.”

(Associated Press writer Andrew Selsky contributed to this report.)