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Vote fraud deal makes Preval Haiti president

Posted on: Thursday, 16 February 2006, 19:47 CST

By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti declared Rene Preval, a one-time ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's next president on Thursday after a deal on vote fraud claims averted a feared outbreak of violence.

Preval, a former president passionately supported by the Caribbean country's poor but opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Aristide from power two years ago, claimed "massive fraud" in the February 7 election had deprived him of a first-round victory in one of the world's poorest countries.

"We have won. Now we are going to fight for parliament," Preval told the Haitian Press Agency. After that, he secluded himself in his sister's hilltop house outside Port-au-Prince and made no further comment.

Jubilant supporters poured into the streets, dancing and chanting "victory, victory," after the embattled Provisional Electoral Council issued a statement on Haitian radio in the middle of the night announcing the deal.

Eight of the council's nine members signed the agreement.

"Rene Preval has been declared the winner with 51 percent," council President Max Mathurin said, setting the country of 8.5 million off on the next chapter in a turbulent political history marked by instability, dictatorships and bloodshed.

The United States -- the key foreign player in Haiti and accused of undermining Aristide -- welcomed Preval's victory.

"We want this government to succeed," said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "This is a chance for a country that has had too few chances."

However, Preval's leading rival in the election with 11.8 percent of the vote, former President Leslie Manigat, angrily denounced what he called a "coup d'etat through the ballots."

FIRST SINCE REVOLT

Last week's election was the first since Aristide fled into exile in 2004, driven out by an armed revolt and international pressure after his image as a hero of Haitian democracy was stained by accusations of despotism and corruption.

Preval's supporters warned they would not allow him to suffer the same fate as Aristide, who was twice elected and twice ousted, first by a military coup and then by the revolt.

Preval, 63, was president from 1996 to 2001, between Aristide's two terms, and is the only leader in Haiti's 202-year history to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand power to a successor.

"For us, Preval means hope, respect and progress," said Jonas Lundi, 28, as he celebrated in the Canape Vert district.

Smiling Preval supporters clogged streets in the chaotic capital, waved posters of their candidate, drove in ecstatic, honking convoys and congregated near the National Palace, where Preval will take office on March 29.

Under the deal, the electoral council distributed 85,000 ballots that were left blank proportionately among the 33 candidates, Mathurin said.

The blanks, amounting to 4.7 percent of the total, had been included in the total number of votes, in accordance with the law, reducing the final percentage allocated to each candidate. That helped keep Preval's share at 48.7 percent -- below the majority he needed to avoid a March 19 runoff.

But many Haitians suspected the blank votes had been stuffed into ballot boxes to force Preval into a second round and outraged supporters on Monday brought Port-au-Prince to a standstill, erecting roadblocks and storming a luxury hotel.

The agreement on blank ballots gave Preval 51.15 percent, with 96 percent of ballots counted, the council said.

"Given the circumstances and the situation, it was a reasonable way to attempt to resolve a conflict and an impasse that could have led to serious conflict and violence in the society," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in New York.

Industrialist Charles Baker, considered the main candidate of the wealthy elite and a distant third with 7.9 percent of the vote, disagreed. "We thought we were in a democratic process and everybody would observe the rules," he said.

Poor Haitians warned foes not to undermine Preval.

"We have elected Preval for five years," said Jean-Marie Theodore, 25, a student. "We won't accept that he misses one minute of his five-year mandate."

(Additional reporting by Michael Christie in Port-au-Prince, Saul Hudson in Washington, Fiona Ortiz in Santiago and Irwin Arieff at the United Nations)

Source: REUTERS

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